


Everything Gold

by opabine



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cold War, Espionage, M/M, Multi, Politics, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 01:13:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opabine/pseuds/opabine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is 1974, and the world stretches between two superpowers.<br/>La Société des Amis de l’A B C works for the downtrodden still, its members scattered all across the globe. Its existence is nebulous; authorities have tried and failed to identify or capture any of its leaders.<br/>At its head - Enjolras, the youngest member of the House of Representatives; his lieutenants - Courfeyrac, Combeferre, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Bahorel, Joly, Lesgle. The best and brightest, and closest of friends.</p><p>Grantaire died in 1965.<br/>Although - perhaps a better word would be “disappeared”.<br/>He is a distressingly plural agent, causing havoc with whip-smart Musichetta, a Londoner on loan from MI6 - and he’s still alive.<br/>In the thick of the Cold War, the trick is staying that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It is shockingly, bitterly cold.

Enjolras shivers and tugs his coffee closer. Combeferre, reading a newspaper across the little table, lifts both eyebrows in amusement.

Enjolras cuts him a sharp look and pointedly sips his coffee with as much restraint as possible - but he can’t hide the frisson of delight that passes across his face at the warmth. It’s not like he hasn’t spent the majority of his adult life living up North, but Combeferre knows all too well his incurable aversion to cold.

Maybe they should have gone to Marseilles instead, or Aix. There they might have had a chance at the sun. But no, the embassies and the meeting, the people Enjolras needs to sway, are in Paris - in November Paris, blustery and cold.

And perhaps they should have taken their coffee indoors, but - this is _Paris_ ; if they have to be here, they’re going to make the most of it. Which includes the pavement café experience, even though it’s so blisteringly glacial the little green cups are lukewarm in a minute and stone cold in two.

“I’ve got Southern blood too, you know,” says Combeferre dryly from behind his newspaper. “The difference: I know how to dress accordingly.” He’s wearing a thick parka and scarf; Enjolras, on the other hand, is sharp in a suit - a suit that is doing nothing to shield him from the wind.

“I’m not cold,” he says, experimentally. Combeferre snorts and folds up the newspaper. Tucking it into his briefcase, he reaches nonchalantly for his own coffee. Enjolras raises an eyebrow in turn, watching him prolong the gesture, and Combeferre hides a smile in the rim of his cup. A familiar morning tease. He relents.

“No news; at least, none important enough to make it overseas.” For what they’re doing, no news is good news. Enjolras exhales.

“Excellent. Will Courfeyrac be down soon? I need to go over some legal details with him before I talk with Peyron.”

“I’m sure he’ll be out of the shower any time now. I told him we’d gone down the street for breakfast.”

Enjolras bites back a smile. Courfeyrac had spent the night flirting persistently with the wickedly clever woman tending the bar - who, when her shift had finished, had proceeded to drink him under the table, and not into a bed.

He must have an awful hangover, but neither Combeferre nor Enjolras can summon any sympathy for their friend. They have, however, ordered him a croissant, as consolation.

The street in front of them pulses with people, even in the cold silver light of morning.

Combeferre taps his fingers on the table. “There’s a politician dead in Moscow. Brezhnev’s crying foul, says it was an assassination.”

“Well, and maybe it was.” Enjolras snorts delicately into his coffee. “A bit overt to be American, I’d have thought? Especially with the SALT talks going on.”

“Ford’s denied involvement, whatever that means. I don’t think the Russians buy it.” Combeferre takes a sip of coffee, lost in thought, then sighs and returns it carefully to its dish. “And there’s been a bombing - two, in Birmingham, yesterday night.”

Enjolras looks up from the coiling steam of his coffee. “How many dead?” he asks, quietly.

“Twenty-one, so far - more than a hundred wounded.” Combeferre’s jaw tightens imperceptibly. “Neither of the two pubs targeted were evacuated in time. There’s not much anybody can do with six minutes warning.”

“This is playing at revolution,” Enjolras mutters. “Yes, independence, _absolutely_ \- laws cannot and should not be applied to a people unless they are truly a part of that which wills the law into being, and the radiance of the future sometimes demands a terrible price; but -”

“The good must be innocent.” Combeferre finishes. “Yes. The taking of lives in this manner places a tarnish upon any cause, no matter how justified that cause is.”

Enjolras exhales. “You have the right of it, as always. I expect the backlash against the Irish is severe?”

“Mmm. I’ll call Joly; he can get our contacts to keep an eye on those caught in the crossfire, make sure they get the care they need.”

With the NHS, a fund transfer won’t be necessary - which isn’t the case in most of the situations Joly deals with.

“Good.” Enjolras looks exhausted, Combeferre thinks, like glass blown too thin. His voice is brittle. “The people of the world must be able to forge the lock-picks of their escape from the chains of oppression; but among the many things I have learned from you is that tools of _this_ sort tend to blow up in the faces of those that use them, and the chains are merely tempered in the flames.”

Combeferre gives him a small, sad smile.

“The truest freedom must come through the enlightenment of the people; ‘thus the union of the understanding and the will in the social body, thence the full cooperation of all the parts, and finally the greatest force of the whole,’” Enjolras quotes, and his eyes flash. “Those who don’t know the extent of their subjugation cannot fight against it; the only aid an outsider can give to a people that leaves the legitimacy of the general will unsullied is just such an enlightenment - the ability to develop and voice informed opinions of their own.”

Enjolras breaks off rather than finishing, gaze drawn to a passing figure in the crowd; a dusty bell rings in the back of his mind, sending a thrill of curious recognition down his spine. He sets his coffee down carefully. A stroll, perhaps, might be in order, as the morning is brisk and lovely, and the idea of letting the stranger disappear into the depths of Paris is suddenly - unwelcome.

“I just need to stretch my legs,” Enjolras says in explanation as he unfolds himself from the little table. “I won’t be long - keep Courfeyrac here when he arrives, have him take a couple of ibuprofen; I need him alert.” And, tossing a bottle at Combeferre, Enjolras is gone.

Combeferre watches him go with something akin to worry. He, too, had vaguely recognized the person in the patched grey jacket.

\------

Enjolras follows the man at a distance, concealed among the morning pedestrians of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, studying him. Those dark curls are - _had been_ \- distinctive, and a cold, confused knot begins to form in the base of his stomach.

When the man lifts a hand to his ear, sweeping a strand of hair out of his eyes, Enjolras is _almost certain_. He’d never once met anyone else with fingers quite like that, quite as long and graceful and poised; in years past, all too often trembling slightly with the effects of alcohol.

The only problem is, Grantaire is supposed to be dead.

They’d buried him ten _years_ ago, for God’s sake.

Yet although he still hasn’t seen the man’s face clearly, Enjolras is sure. Grantaire is here, in Paris.

A man in a pale suit sitting at a café on the other side of the road stands up, and Grantaire turns toward him.

The two are the only still objects in the street; a strange polarization, Grantaire shadow-silent and the other man just as coldly focused on him.

Then Grantaire moves, crossing the paving-stones, hands carefully out in front of him in a gesture Enjolras can’t quite parse. The other man echoes the movement, and resumes his seat with hands on the table.

Grantaire sits facing Enjolras, ducking briefly to place a small leather case on the ground beside him, and Enjolras can’t stop his heart from stuttering at the confirmation of what he already knew. The face is more angular than before, the eyes more shadowed, and there is a composure to the set of his features that Enjolras can’t remember ever seeing before; but it is him, all the same. Grantaire’s mouth moves as he exchanges pleasantries with the other man - a business partner, perhaps.

Belatedly, Enjolras realizes he has stopped walking and is staring rather conspicuously. He pulls out a notebook from his suit jacket and pretends to be checking a map scribbled inside the cover by the hotel manager that morning.

When he looks back up, the atmosphere at the table has changed. The set of the suited man’s shoulders reads tension, and Grantaire has subtly angled himself both in and away, body language clear - he’s poised for flight.

Enjolras watches, curious, and then several things happen at once - Grantaire knocks over a water glass - the pale-suited man’s hands slip off the table, going for his pockets, but Grantaire is quicker (always fast as lightning) and he’s got a gun in his hand - a _gun_ in his _hand_ \- and he fires.

There is a dull _whump_.

Grantaire is in the street in a heartbeat, calm and unhurried. Behind him, the other man slumps at unnatural angles.

The other patrons of the café seem remarkably unsurprised - but Enjolras doesn’t have time to consider that because he’s moving, stepping into Grantaire’s path with a strange pulsing in his head, heedless of his notebook falling to the pavement.

There is a blur of motion, and the gun is in his face, endless round darkness, Grantaire’s eyes dispassionate blue and finger tightening on the trigger - he’s going to die, how _useless_ , here - he doesn’t flinch.

But Grantaire does, recognition hitting him like a crossbow bolt, and his hand jerks up and to the side. The bullet flashes in a streak of heat past Enjolras’ ear.

“Enjolras,” he breathes in silent horror, “ _fuck_ -”

Enjolras raises an eyebrow as his heart thumps heavily against his lungs; there are a thousand questions crowding on the tip of his tongue, but -

“Get _out_ of here, jesus _christ_ , go, _go_ , _christ_ -” and Grantaire shoves him away, hard.

The café’s other occupants are on their feet now, and the outline of danger is obvious in the way they move, in the odd rucking of their coats and their hands reaching as if in slow motion.

 _Dying here achieves nothing, not for any cause_ , screams a little voice in his head, and for once Enjolras is inclined to listen. Whatever’s happening here, he’s weaponless, and there is not a single thing he can do. So when Grantaire whispers a suddenly raw, “I am capable,” Enjolras nods once, sharply, and then turns and _runs_.

Gunshots cough behind him.

As soon as he reaches the main avenue, he slows to a fast walk that is unremarkable among the hurrying streams of distracted Parisians, cursing himself for not having noticed the crowds thinning the further he had followed Grantaire among the twisting streets.

It occurs to him that he’s just entrusted Grantaire with his life. For some reason, he isn’t concerned. _I am capable_. Enjolras believes him.

His pulse has quieted somewhat when he spots Combeferre and a tousled Courfeyrac at their table. He lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and Combeferre looks up.

Enjolras mouths “ _Hotel, now_ ” at him; Combeferre catches his urgency instantly, sweeping the papers spread out in front of him into his briefcase and standing in one motion. Courfeyrac looks up, puzzled, but his eyes widen when he sees Enjolras’ face and he gulps the rest of his coffee, untangling his feet from the chair legs.

“You’re bleeding,” he says, matter-of-fact, and hands Enjolras a napkin.

Combeferre leaves a ten franc note on top of Courfeyrac’s half-eaten croissant.

\------

 _Capable of what,_ his earpiece scratches out frantically, _getting yourself killed? You_ sodding _idiot! What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing -_

But Grantaire’s heart is still in shock, and the sound of his gun blends with a high-pitched rushing buzz in his ears.

One down - two - fuck, behind him - he twists and lashes out with a foot to the jaw - they’re not firing to kill, he can tell, this is _wrong_ \- he rolls under a punch and uses the butt of his Smith and Wesson to knock that one unconscious, and something thuds heavily into his ribcage.

 _Ah, shit._ From the sudden flare of agony, that might have been a rib cracking.

There are too many of them.

 _R!_  screams Musichetta through the earpiece.

\------

Enjolras settles gingerly onto the bedspread as Courfeyrac dabs a wet cloth over the side of his head. Combeferre’s unpacking the first aid kit - bought in London because the last one had been confiscated on the damn Atlantic flight.

He pulls out a bottle of TCP, and Courfeyrac winces in sympathy. Unscrewing the cap, Combeferre says, quietly, “The bullet just grazed your temple. You should be fine.”

Enjolras closes his eyes against the sting of the antiseptic.

“Hold this, Courfeyrac, please,” and Enjolras feels cool fingers on his jaw, tilting his head to better inspect the wound.

Without opening his eyes, Enjolras says, “It was R.”

Combeferre sighs, breath ruffling the curls under Enjolras’ ear.

Behind him, Courfeyrac drops the bottle. Enjolras imagines dark liquid splashing into the white carpet, spreading out, a blooming yellow rose.

\------

Grantaire blinks awake to silence.

 _Fuck me_ , he thinks, groaning; he aches all over and there is a sharp throb radiating through his head. He moves to rub his eyes, but is stopped short; cold metal bites around his wrists. His ankles seem likewise occupied.

 _Shit fucking bollocks_ , he thinks with more vehemence, but manages to stop the fear coiling up his throat from showing on his face.

Okay. Evaluate. He’s in a room, small, dirty cream walls, no windows, plain white door, no handle. Empty except for him, cuffed uncomfortably to a small metal chair in the middle of the room.

Possibly it was once a bedroom of some sort - there are four scuff-marks spaced in the shape of a bed on the floor in the far corner.

A hotel room? That would make sense; nothing permanent, no real document trail, easily abandoned once they’ve done what they intend to.

Dread slides silvery down his spine; all the worse for being named. He knows what happens next.

The door opens. A woman in an impeccably tailored suit steps inside, followed soundlessly by a man carrying another chair. He sets it down some distance from Grantaire, aligns it precise to the wall.

The woman waits until he has straightened, then flicks a hand in dismissal. He inclines his head and slips back through the door. It shuts with a click.

She moves forward, and settles gracefully into the seat.

When she speaks, it is in French. “Hello, R.”

 _Don’t fuck with me,_ Grantaire thinks, and snaps, in perfect, unaccented Russian, “Get to the point.”

\------

Enjolras has his head over the sink, Courfeyrac massaging shampoo into his scalp in soothing circles. Foam drips down onto the porcelain, gone pink with blood.

No one’s said a word. Combeferre must have suspected something, from his reaction; Courfeyrac seems unable to speak - a first, thinks Enjolras wryly, except - not quite.

They’d been close since the first week of university; they’d all been close, they were les Amis de l’A B C, they all virtually breathed with the same lungs, shared the same heart, if not quite every thought. Courfeyrac had come up with the pun, of course; he’s taken French since he was six, and can be remarkably persuasive when he has his heart set on a thing.

Courfeyrac was - still is, always will be - their hot bright lifeblood; and he’d been the one to find Grantaire’s crumpled car at the bottom of the ravine, that cold summer night so long ago.

He hadn’t spoken for a week.

Still quick to give his heart, still a star system of warmth, Courfeyrac has intensified to fill the darkness of a missing sun. Even now, when he looks at them, the fierce protectiveness that had always been there is sharpened by the lurking terror of loss.

Enjolras can’t forgive Grantaire for that.

Warm water sluices over his head, then the soft towel covering his shoulders and neck is taken up. Courfeyrac rubs it briskly over his damp hair, leaves it draped over Enjolras’ head and goes to fetch a blowdryer.

Enjolras blinks water out of his eyes, lifts the towel out of his face. Combeferre is leaning on the doorframe, arms crossed.

“Talk to me,” he says, quietly.

Courfeyrac plugs in the blowdryer.

\------

She’s smoking a cigarette now - red, red mouth pursed around it, smoke curling out in ribbons. She leans forward, blows a stream in his eyes. He screws them shut and repeats, “You know who I am. I can’t tell you anything you don’t -”

He sucks in a breath; she’s stubbed the cigarette out on the skin at the curve of his elbow.

She raises an eyebrow, gestures for him to continue as she relights the cigarette.

Grantaire coughs out a laugh, then gasps for air. Yeah, definitely a snapped rib or two.

His voice is hoarse. “Like I said -” and he smiles with blood on his tongue, “- I’m as much one of you as can be. Look, the stuff you need, it’s in the briefcase - do you want stories or the real deal? I can do fucking stories, and you sure as hell don’t have a hundred eyes - well, it’ll be words and not song, but my point stands -”

Half an hour ago, the other man had reentered the room; he’s been standing, motionless, just behind Grantaire’s shoulder, and it is making his skin crawl in anticipation.

The man moves now, fist snapping out and connecting with the back of Grantaire’s head. Everything goes white.

Dammit. Okay. He can deal, fine.

He opens his mouth for some kind of retort, but his tongue is sluggish against the roof of his mouth and anyway there’s a thick wad of cloth being shoved past his teeth. He bites down and tastes blood - someone slaps him across the face, hard.

“Nothing to say now?” Her voice is cool, amused. “Well, well.”

A laugh.

“We have your pretty friend, you know.”

Grantaire’s heart stops. He raises his head to look at her, despite the sudden sick impossibility of motion. His hands are cold. Her eyes are colder.

“Did you think you could distract us with theatrics? How sweet.” She sounds delighted.

He struggles for breath. She leans in. “He’s just next door.”

Helpless, his eyes fly to the wall.

Her breath ghosts past his ear. “They’re going to shoot him now.”

 _Oh_. Bad as a blow to his broken ribs, it is worse, it is a thousand cathedrals smashing - ripping him to shreds -

The sounds he makes are muffled, and she laughs. “Listen.”

As if he could do anything else.

There is a silence as wide as the universe between him and the next room - the walls must be paper-thin, because he can hear the click of the gun cocking.

The sound of the shot is deafening.

His thoughts scatter like a flock of startled birds - circling, circling - there is emptiness and ice and the birds fall dead one by one and his mind is filled with feathers and blood.

\------

“I need to leave for the meeting, Combeferre,” Enjolras sighs as soon as Courfeyrac turns the blowdryer off.

“There’s time,” Combeferre says, pushing away from the doorframe to stand upright. “Here, I’ll do it.” He takes a brush from the cabinet beside the door, and Enjolras feels himself smiling almost against his will.

Courfeyrac moves round in front of him, perches on the tiled edge of the sink. His hands have nothing to do now, and they twitch.

The tug of the brush through his hair is soothing, as if all his anxiety is being pulled out of his head with each stroke, piece by piece.

Finally, Courfeyrac speaks. “Grantaire -” He stops, unsettled, then gathers his thoughts. “He... shot you?”

“No… well, it’s the _not quite_ that matters. He could have; he killed another man.”

Combeferre lays the brush aside and runs a clinical eye over Enjolras’ face.

Enjolras doesn’t break eye contact with Courfeyrac. “He had the gun in my face like an instinct - not even Combeferre can handle a gun like that - and he couldn’t shoot me.”

He doesn’t say what he thinks next - whatever Grantaire’s been doing these past few years, it certainly hasn’t been wasting himself in the gutters of the Continent.

But Combeferre seems to understand anyway, and his eyes sharpen. “You did know, Enjolras, when Grantaire - disappeared... he’d been sober for two and a half months?”

What.

No, he hadn’t.

Combeferre exhales. “I thought not. Well, I saw him that afternoon; preoccupied, sure, but still sober."

Something twinges beneath his breastbone.

“You would have put things together. As it is, well - I’d only suspected, but this settles it, rather.”

Courfeyrac jolts upright. “Oh, my _God_.”

Grantaire’s mother had been Russian - she’d died, the year before the wreck. Grantaire had spoken the language as easy as breathing - he had a head for tongues - used to do jiujitsu, moved like a ballet dancer when sober - those missing weeks, and when he came back he was always slightly different, subtly out of kilter -

And Brezhnev, newly in office, with the world running scared.

“You know I volunteered at the hospital?” Combeferre was saying to Courfeyrac. “We never did a proper identity analysis. The body was taken away before we could do much of anything at all, and no one ever said a word.”

“I spy with my little eye something beginning with R,” murmurs Courfeyrac. There is a strange elation in his voice.

\------

For some reason, Courfeyrac’s voice is playing in his head, through the pain.

He’s on his knees and his face is underwater, and Courfeyrac says, staticky, “If we die in the fight, well, that’s how we’d want to go, isn’t it?” Air, light... water. “Nothing really to mourn there. We achieved significance.”

Grantaire can’t remember having this conversation. Air bubbles leak from his mouth.

“I just can’t take - it’s a waste, you know? Meaningless.”

They pull him up again, and his lungs scramble for oxygen.

He knows, theoretically, that it hadn’t been Enjolras in the room next door. They’d have made him watch, if it had. He couldn’t be dead. He wasn’t dead.

He _wasn’t_.

\------

As Combeferre fusses over the knot of Enjolras’ tie, Courfeyrac keeps up a running patter of information, pacing excitedly from one end of the room to another; occasionally he flings himself over to check on the tie’s progress.

Enjolras already knows the gist of it all, but it is reassuring to hear again; Peyron’s political leanings (“...quiet shade of grey mouse color, a well placed word can move worlds and all that, so try not to offend him _too_ much - oh, don’t look at me like that, we need his support, man’s got money -”), his areas of interest (“half as concerned with Poland and the Iron Curtain as Feuilly, that’s pretty damn concerned, so feel free to expound, okay?”), what literature to cite (“for the love of all that is holy, _not_ Marx this time, he’s allergic”).

Finally, Enjolras’ attire is deemed acceptable, and Courfeyrac runs out of words.

Combeferre pulls him into a hug, then draws back and says, seriously, “Don’t be gentle on this.”

His reply of _When am I ever_ goes unsaid, but Combeferre’s eyes flash with humor anyway.

Enjolras reaches out to touch Courfeyrac’s wrist. “Thank you,” he says, meaning it.

Courfeyrac smiles and closes his eyes, grips the offered hand fiercely. When he opens his eyes again, they are full of fire.

“Go now. We’ll find him.”

\------

The room is empty now, and dark.

He tries not to think about the pain; he drifts, Enjolras’ sunbright hair behind his eyelids.

Centuries pass, until - a crash, a flood of light, cautious footsteps, the metallic rustle of a radio.

“Fucking hell, R,” a voice says, far away, echoing oddly through his head. Then there are fingers at his wrist, his neck, the clinking of metal at his ankles.

“Oh thank God,” Musichetta whispers when she finds a pulse.

Grantaire feels lips press lightly to his forehead.

“Up we go.” Someone slips under his arm and pulls him upright. He bites back a whimper. “Can you walk?”

 _No_ , he thinks, and also, _wait_ , because the only thing that matters is the Schrödinger’s angel on the other side of the wall, and he doesn’t care how sure he is, he has to _know_. His lips are cracked and swollen, but he says, “Enjolras -”

Grantaire’s head lolls against Musichetta’s shoulder, and her heart shivers at how wrecked his voice is.

He tries again. “Next door - ” A rasping breath. “Please...”

She’s got to get him out of here. “Okay,” she murmurs reassuringly, into his hair. “Okay.”

Somehow she gets him properly on his feet and out the door; propping him carefully against the wallpaper, she pulls out her semi and smashes down the neighboring room’s door with a well-practiced kick. She doesn’t go in (places like these are terrifyingly easy to rig - she should know, it’s what she does) but it’s clear from a glance that the room is empty.

“Nothing here,” she says to Grantaire.

The relief is dizzying. Grantaire feels the world spin and he is suddenly so lightheaded that his vision goes sparkly and his legs aren’t strong enough to hold him up; then Musichetta is at his side again, with a curse and a muffled, “Steady.”

“Musichetta?” he mutters.

“Yes.”

“Do something for me?”

“Yes?”

And he tells her, and she smiles in spite of herself because that is just so Grantaire, and she settles his arm more firmly over her shoulder and he takes a step forward and grits his teeth all the way across the hall to the stairs down and out and into the backseat of a darkened car where at long last he can lie down and fall into soft sweet gentle oblivion.

\------

Combeferre rubs the bridge of his nose in frustration.

 _Nothing_.

The first thing he’d done was call Feuilly, who actually worked for the CIA (in an unknown capacity). Feuilly had sighed, a long and resigned sound, but the important thing was that he had agreed to look into the situation. It was Combeferre calling, after all.

He still needed time to get inside and into the mainframe, so - radio silence for a few hours.

Combeferre’s been down to the café Enjolras mentioned to question the _propriétaire_ ; there had been blood still on the cobblestones.

He groans and reaches for his coffee, bringing it to his lips, only to find it drained.

“Would you like a second cup? Or rather, a sixth,” drawls Courfeyrac.

Combeferre looks up at Courfeyrac, who is eyeing him mischievously, brows raised - sipping from his own cup.

“Your tenth,” Combeferre points out.

“True.”

They have taken over the concierge’s desk downstairs in order to have access to a telephone and a fax-machine (what wonders a wheedling Courfeyrac can work); Parisian phonebooks, maps, papers pile in snowdrifts around them.

The ‘phone rings, and is at Combeferre’s ear before it has time to stop rattling.

“Hello?”

“Hey. I’m in.” Feuilly’s voice sounds strange. “This is some weird shit. I’ve found a subdirectory, printed out some stuff - can’t be sure, but... look, I’ll fax it to you, okay?”

“Okay,” says Combeferre. His throat feels tight.

There is a pause, then the fax machine stutters to life and spits out a single sheet of paper. Courfeyrac snatches it up, brings it close to his eyes, hold it away; then smiles smugly, and passes it over.

The page is covered with little data dits, but a face can be clearly seen.

“That’s it; this is R,” Combeferre says, quietly, into the phone.

“Yes, I know.” Impatient.

“What?”

“It’s the other picture I’m not sure about.”

There’s another fax lying in the tray; this time it’s a photo. Combeferre reaches for it first.

His hand goes numb. _Oh my god_.

Feuilly again, crackling in his ear. “It was faxed here about an hour ago, sender unknown - is it...”

“Yes,” Combeferre says, distant.

In the photo, Grantaire is sprawled, eyes open, on a chair in some anonymous room, black curls slicked wetly across his cheekbones; but for the jacket, he is nearly unrecognizable - the grayscale hides nothing. Written at the bottom, in neat black letters, is a date and time, certificate of arrival, and a careless scribble, “ _Compromised_ _(?)_ “.

Courfeyrac rips it from his hands; there is a moment of shocked silence - his eyes widen, sick, and he presses the back of his hand to his mouth.

Then Feuilly says, sharp, “Hey. _Hey_. Calm down. The next thing in here is a flight record, Paris to New York. He’s out. He’s _safe_.”

Combeferre breathes through the claws in his throat.

“Thank you, Feuilly,” he says.

“No problem.” He sounds tired. “I’m going to let the others know, okay? Not everything. But.”

“Wouldn’t dream of stopping you. Do what you do best and don’t get caught,” Combeferre tells him.

“It’s why they hired me.” A chuckle. “Take care, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The line clicks to silence.

He replaces the ‘phone carefully on the stand, then turns and opens his arms. Courfeyrac moves into them, buries his head against his neck and holds tight.

A voice from the door says, amused and very English, “Care to lend me a hand?”

\------

It's late and the streetlights are casting golden puddles on the wet pavement by the time Enjolras returns.

Combeferre’s waiting for him inside the door, thermos in hand. There is a hurried exchange, briefcase for thermos; Enjolras takes a long, grateful gulp, then makes a face.

“What is this, tea?”

“Mmmm. You need to sleep tonight.” Then Combeferre adds, cryptically, “Although that might be a bit difficult right now.”

“Why?” Enjolras says, suspicious.

Combeferre smiles. “You’ll see.”

Enjolras follows him to the stairs and all the way up to their room; Combeferre doesn’t turn around until they reach the door, where Courfeyrac stands as if on watch.

“Nobody’s disturbed anything,” Courfeyrac says, eyes dancing.

Enjolras glances between the two of them, puzzled. Courfeyrac makes shooing motions with his hands. “Go on in.”

Enjolras moves forward with a huff of exasperation; twisting the handle, he turns and gives them a last bemused glance; then he steps inside.

A flower stem crunches under his foot - but Enjolras doesn’t notice. It's almost difficult to remember how to make his lungs work.

The room glows with chrysanthemums, hundreds of them, scattered over the floor, in vases on every surface, heaped on the pillows and duvet, red-white-gold, an explosion of color.

Enjolras closes his eyes, and breathes in.


	2. Chapter 2

“What the _fuck_ was that, Grantaire?”

His supervisor’s voice is harsh, but there is genuine concern in his eyes, and Grantaire gives him half a rueful smile.

“I didn’t insult anybody’s mother, scout’s honor - it was just a routine exchange.”

His handler pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers and closes his eyes. Head down, he grits out, “And you _really_ thought that even the simplest interaction would have been okay? Did you _see_ the papers?”

“Yeah, you guys really fucked yourselves over there, huh?” Grantaire snaps. Then he sighs, gathers his thoughts. His next words are calculated. “Look, you know as well as I do that the nature of this arrangement brooks no flexibility. I don’t show up even _once,_ they kill the setup, most likely me with it. You want any information, I have to deal with your shit.” He raises a finger to cut off an interruption, leans forward. “And that Moscow thing _was_ shit. What the hell were you thinking?”

Any other agent wouldn’t have gotten away with such a blatant challenge. But this is Grantaire; he is perfectly aware that he’s one of their best, and far too integral.

It helps that he still looks like shit. _Guilt trips are the best sort of trips_ , he decides, at the stricken but quickly tamped-down look in the other man’s eye. _For other people to take._

“For the record, that is none of your business,” his boss says; but he adds, grudging, “As much as it pains me to admit, you’re right - somebody jumped the gun without authorization. It’s a mess.”

Grantaire snags a pen from the desk in front of him, sticks it between his teeth, sits back and raises an eyebrow.

Then his handler’s face hardens. “If they plan to pinch you when you skip, going and getting caught was hardly a safer option. Frankly, you shouldn’t be alive right now. You’ve got some serious explaining to do.”

“I’m still here, aren’t I? And I didn’t give them jack shit, so you can get off my case.” His voice is cutting, now. Of course he had had a workable escape route from the café, an excellent one - Musichetta was his second in the field, she wouldn’t let him step outside without five safe ways back. But he’ll be damned if he’s telling this man about Enjolras.

A headache threatens violence behind his eyes, but he doesn’t close them. He knows the effect he can have on people, so he fixes the man across the desk with as penetrating a stare as he can summon. 

There is a long, tense moment, then the other man exhales sharply. “Fine.” He sounds tired. “You’ve still got a report to write. Get out of here.”

Grantaire tilts his head in thanks, pockets the pen, stands and moves to the door. A voice interrupts him as he reaches for the handle. 

“Don’t think you’ve talked your way out of this yet, little songbird. I’ll be here all week.”

Grantaire gives him a mocking half-salute, and slips out of the room.

Musichetta is sitting outside the office, flicking through a bulging file, highlighter behind her ear and a fierce look of concentration on her face. She looks up at the sound of the door opening; her mouth quirks with amusement.

“Being a recalcitrant little shit again?” she teases.

He huffs out a laugh and stoops to kiss her hair. She swats at him with the folder. “You know me too well,” he says wryly.

“Yes,” she says, standing. “Mood check?”

“Frustrated,” he smirks. “My fault, sorry. He’ll be polite to you, though, Miss MI6.”

She rolls her eyes and straightens her suit. “That’s because he’s a prick who can’t keep his hands to himself. Wish me luck.”

“Oh, always.” He reaches for her elbow as she moves to open the door. “I’ll be out for a couple of days, okay? Business at the Capitol and all that. Ta.” He smiles and trots off, fluttering his fingers at her over his shoulder.

Musichetta watches him go, shaking her head in fond exasperation. They’ve been working together long enough that he knows the things she needs without asking; location, clarity, information. He’ll give them to her whenever possible. Grantaire - pain in the arse, little Jack-in-the-Box; as long as she’s known him, always itching for the next adrenaline high; but with his friends (and how did she become his friend, when was that ever going to be a good idea), endlessly affectionate. 

It’s the only thing that trips him up, in the field or elsewhere. It’s fortunate he’s so capable of concealing it, most of the time, because it leaves him more vulnerable than she likes to think. As far as Musichetta can tell, he believes (really, _really_ believes) in nothing else; fuck the system, politics and national loyalty - his compass aligns itself according to those he loves.

There aren’t many, and Musichetta hasn’t met any others (except, perhaps - she thinks of Paris and chrysanthemums); but they’re there, sure as rain in London, or he would never have come back all these times.

In a world of grays, it’s nice to be someone’s black and white.

She smiles, braces herself, and opens the door.

\------

It is dark and urgent with rain in Langley, but by the time he drives into Washington, DC, the clouds have been left far behind and the sun is shining cold and bright.

 _Ah, fuck it_ , he thinks, and leaves the car in a side alley off 7th Street. He is here for a very important reason, but that can wait for half an hour. He’s been in a hospital bed for a week and the inactivity is driving him _mad_. 

Pocketing his keys, Grantaire tries a slow jog, and winces at the ache in his muscles. Perhaps a bit slower, then. A walk along the National Mall, a chance to stretch his legs - it can’t do any harm, and the fresh air might stop him doing something rash (rash like sticking around, rash like not just finishing the job and getting the _hell_ out).

They should have flown in two days ago, according to the flight bookings he’d found this morning. He scuffs the tip of his shoe along the gravel of the pathway and hopes that he’s come in time to avert a disaster. _Damn hospital_. If the system's insistence on a full week means he’s too late, there’ll be hell to pay.

The sun glances light from a reflecting pool, and he stops, caught by white blindness in the corner of his eye and the glitter of sky. His fingers tingle suddenly for lack of a pencil, which is odd - he hasn’t felt the need to sketch for a long time.

A tap on his shoulder, and he fights the impulse to leap out of his skin and break all the bones in this stranger’s hand.

Except, when he whips around, it’s not a stranger.

“Oh, hi, Enjolras,” he says, tongue blank for the first time in years. _Don’t act like you didn’t expect this_ , his brain hisses sarcastically, but he is almost as horrified as he’d been in Paris.

Luckily, he’s had a lot of experience keeping his feet even as the bottom of the world falls away beneath him.

So he smiles, a sharp little flash of teeth, and says, “Did you like the flowers?”

\------

Enjolras can’t take his eyes from the dark bruise crawling over Grantaire’s cheekbone. Tongues of mottled green lick beneath his right eye; purple-red poppies bloom under his skin, until Grantaire shakes his head abruptly and his hair falls from behind his ear to cover the worst of the bruising.

Grantaire is watching him almost warily. Enjolras bites down the hot buzz in his chest, anger, anxiety, frustration - he can’t tell; he meets Grantaire’s gaze, level.

“Yes,” he says, and then, “You were dead.”

Grantaire settles his shoulders back, straightens. In any other person this would be a defiance. Here, though - acquiescence. He’s exposing his heart.

“Yes. To you.”

Enjolras is, momentarily, furious. “To everyone who knew you - your parents, your family -” Grantaire’s eyes harden, but Enjolras continues, softer now, “To us. To _us._ What were we, nothing?”

A flash of pain passes over Grantaire’s face. “Never.”

“Then how could you?” It’s almost a whisper. “We -”

“You tolerated me,” Grantaire sighs, “for my good humor.” His gaze drops. “Please, don’t lie to me. Not now.”

Enjolras opens his mouth. Then closes it, because there's nothing he can say to that, and Grantaire won’t look at him.

So he steps forward and presses a hand gently to Grantaire’s chest, and says, quietly, “You saved my life.” He can feel the warm thump of a heartbeat under his fingers.

Grantaire puffs out a small, silent laugh, as if it hurts. A hand comes up to cover Enjolras’.

“Yes,” he admits. He closes his eyes, lashes stark against the shadows below. “If it helps, I would have done the same for any of you.”

“Thank you,” Enjolras says simply. Grantaire tightens his grip on Enjolras’ hand - as if he can’t decide whether to tear it off or curl into it -  and breathes. 

Then he opens his eyes. “Yes, well, that’s the problem, you see.”

And he steps back, turns and walks away.

Enjolras watches him go.

\------

Twilight is gathering in the corners of the horizon, and Grantaire lights another cigarette.

The ember flares below his nose when he breathes in the smoke. Holds. Breathes out. His left hand eases its death grip on the cold metal of the park bench’s armrest.

He is surprised at how quiet his mind is. There isn’t any argument to be had, for once.

He can’t do this twice. The knowledge is a cool weight on the back of his tongue.

He just. Can’t. That's all.

When the cigarette burns down to his fingers, he lights a new one.

\------

“Is Pontmercy in?” Combeferre pants.

“You know, I think he’s out stalking that lovely young intern you’ve got,” Courfeyrac answers with a laugh. “There’ll be wedding bells and a blushing groom before we know it, and I’ll be down a roommate.”

“It may be high time to invest in a more permanent housing solution anyway,” Combeferre says, as they climb the stairs to Courfeyrac’s apartment. In between drags for air, he mourns the death of the complex’s elevator. 

“He pays the bills!” protests Courfeyrac, bounding energetically upwards, two stairs at a time. “And he’s my partner at the firm. It’s only logical.”

“He used not to be able to pay for anything,” Combeferre points out. “Don’t pretend you didn’t take him in out of anything other than the sheer goodness of your heart.”

“You slay me,” Courfeyrac cries, pausing to strike a dramatic pose on the sixth floor landing. He grins at Combeferre’s exasperated huff. “And anyway, his academic diligence is inspiring. I finished far more assignments for my professors than I would have without him, simply out of the spirit of competition! Besides, his grandfather forgave him _ages_ ago.”

He sets off again, calling over his shoulder, “Nearly there!”

Combeferre swallows a sigh and follows.

Three flights of stairs later, Courfeyrac pulls the stairwell door open with a flourish. Combeferre, winded, can do nothing but nod in gratitude. Courfeyrac follows him through the door, and asks, brightly, “Will you take an evening aperitif with me, since dear Marius is away?”

“I’m not sure I could do otherwise,” Combeferre says dryly, when he has his breath back. “You are frighteningly persuasive.”

“But of course,” Courfeyrac says, smiling. They’ve reached the door to his apartment; he stays outside for a moment, leaning on the door-handle. “I assume Enjolras won’t be joining us?”

“He’s going over the mark-ups to the student aid bill; I’ll drag him off to bed on my way home,” Combeferre says.

“Good. I don’t think he slept at all last night.” There is a note of anxiety in Courfeyrac’s voice. 

“I’ll take care of it this time,” Combeferre assures him. Courfeyrac’s smile returns, brighter than before, and he opens the door. “After you,” he says, with a half-bow.

The living room is devoid of Marius, as Courfeyrac had predicted; it is not, however, empty.

Courfeyrac yelps inarticulately behind Combeferre, who can only stare.

Grantaire is doing a one-armed handstand on the back of Courfeyrac’s couch. He swivels to look at them, then bends, bare feet arched, one-two, and rights himself, soft grey shirt sliding back down over his stomach. He pulls the cuffs of his sleeves to his wrists and examines the heels of his hands nonchalantly, but Courfeyrac has found his voice and has launched himself across the room with a cry to sweep him up in the tightest hug he can muster.

“Mind the ribs -” Grantaire laughs breathlessly, and Courfeyrac leaps back, hiccuping, “Sorry, sorry -”

He clears his throat and says, solemnly, “You’re awfully skinny, R,”; and then leans forward, balances his elbows carefully on Grantaire’s shoulders and buries his nose against the other man’s neck.

Grantaire just looks earth-shatteringly relieved. He turns his head until his cheek is pressed against Courfeyrac’s hair, and murmurs, “Your hair smells the same.”

Courfeyrac draws back with a little wet sound, and says, “Yours _doesn’t_! It’s been washed! This is a miracle.”

Grantaire hums in agreement, mouth twitching.

Combeferre says, quietly, “We missed you,” and moves to put a hand on Courfeyrac’s shoulder.

Grantaire blinks - a slow flicker of surprise - and smiles crookedly. “I’m sorry.” His voice is soft. Combeferre’s eyes crinkle warmly in return, move up to meet Grantaire’s from where they had been steadily examining the irregular bruise creeping up into his hairline. He squeezes Courfeyrac’s shoulder and steps away.

“What, no ‘I missed you too’?” Courfeyrac teases.

“That should go unsaid.” He tries for nonchalance but the waver in his voice betrays him.

With light fingers, Courfeyrac traces a silvering burn along the ridge of Grantaire’s collarbone. “I thought we’d lost you.”

Grantaire scrubs a hand over his face, heaves an unsteady breath. “I’m sorry,” he says again.

“No, no - no!” Courfeyrac pokes his chest, hard. “You’re alive.” He rips off his scarf and winds it around Grantaire’s neck, tugs him over to the little kitchen where Combeferre has begun to take out mugs. “You’re _alive._ ”

“Coffee or tea?” Combeferre asks, flicking on the kettle.

“Tea, please,” Grantaire answers, and Courfeyrac turns to him, outraged.

“Tea?!”

Grantaire laughs, and raises his hands in self defence. “I can’t help it; Musichetta’s rubbing off on me.”

“So _that_ was who we met in Paris,” Courfeyrac says, with happy satisfaction. “She introduced herself as M.”

“ _Did_ she now?” Grantaire grins. He leans back against the counter; a hand goes up, almost unconsciously, to touch Courfeyrac’s scarf. “I don’t doubt it. It’s highly likely that she will be, someday.”

“But not quite yet, hmm?” Combeferre says, amused, and opens a cabinet; running an eye over the boxes stacked inside, he says, “We’ve got a chamomile blend, Earl Grey, Irish Breakfast -”

“We do?” Courfeyrac asks interestedly, peering over Combeferre’s shoulder. “How did those end up in there? Also, this is entirely _not_ what I was thinking of when I said ‘aperitif’.”

Combeferre throws him a pointed look.

“Oh,” Courfeyrac says, realizing; he glances guiltily at Grantaire, who wrinkles his nose. 

“It’s okay - I’m much better at dealing with temptation now, but -” and he reaches out to wrap his fingers around Combeferre’s wrist, “- thank you. Earl Grey, please.” Combeferre pats his hand, and Grantaire lets go, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

“Black?”

“Mmm. Do you have any lemon?”

“I’ll get it,” Courfeyrac says, reaching around Grantaire for the fruit bowl on the counter. He pulls a knife from the drawer beside Combeferre and begins to slice, holding the lemon over the sink. Combeferre sighs and hands him a cutting board.

“By the way,” Courfeyrac says over his shoulder to Grantaire as he slides lemon, knife and board onto the counter, “how _did_ you get in?”

Grantaire runs a hand through his hair. “Through the window,” he admits.

Courfeyrac whips around. “The _window_?” Grantaire eyes the knife, and Courfeyrac starts. “Oops, sorry.” He returns it carefully to the board. “But - we’re nine floors up!”

“Your point?” Grantaire raises an eyebrow.

“Oh, my _god_.”

“A more pertinent question might be _why_ ,” Combeferre interjects, spooning instant coffee into two mugs. He turns, searches Grantaire’s eyes. “You stayed away for nine years. What are you doing here now?”

Grantaire looks at him, evaluating; then answers, “Searching your apartment for bugs.”

Combeferre stills. “Did you find any?”

Grantaire’s mouth thins. He slips a hand into his back pocket, pulls out a plastic bag filled with wires and cracked pieces of plastic and metal. “I stepped on them,” he explains into the sudden echoing silence.

The kettle begins to wail.

Combeferre reaches out mechanically and pulls it free of the plug. He doesn’t look away from the dark tangle in Grantaire’s hands; there is a certain fascination to his slow horror. Then his head snaps up and he says, urgently, to Courfeyrac, “Please tell me you haven’t -”

Courfeyrac has gone very pale and focused. “I don’t think so,” he murmurs, and bites his lip in concentration. “I called Bossuet from the payphone near the office this morning, and I went out last night with Bahorel for drinks because Marius was working on that rape case.”

“What about yesterday morning?”

A tight smile. “Our Pontmercy friend brought me a muffin. I tried to convince him that I was suffering from mononucleosis and not jetlag - alas, he isn’t Joly, and wouldn’t give me a second - we didn’t talk about the A B C at all.”

Combeferre closes his eyes and lets out a breath. “Thank god.”

“They’ve almost certainly rigged your place as well,” Grantaire says, face shuttered and blank.

Combeferre nods slightly, presses the pads of his fingers against his eyelids. “I’ve been drafting speeches. I don’t think a single word has broken the cloister-like silence in my house since we returned.”

“And Enjolras?”

Combeferre laughs, a humorless huff of air. “I’m willing to bet he hasn’t been back to his apartment once.”

Luck. Sheer chance. A single misplaced conversation would have been the end of everything, fate’s fickle finger the only thing between them and the collapse of la Société des Amis de l’A B C - and somehow, _somehow,_ they’re okay.

“Good thing Bossuet’s not here,” Courfeyrac breathes. The air trembles with the hot edge of aborted panic.

“I can sweep your place after,” Grantaire offers, looking at Combeferre. His voice is flat, controlled. 

“Please,” Combeferre replies; then the tone registers, and his eyes snap open. He fixes Grantaire with a sharp gaze. “This is not your fault.”

“Isn’t it, though?” He sounds bitter - helpless.

“They’re tracking us because you saved Enjolras’ _life_ , Grantaire. For that, I will put up with anything - watching our tongues is a small price to pay.”

“This is just a taste of what might happen!” His voice rises. “You have no _fucking_ idea. Do you know what happens when they get their hands on people to use against somebody like me? You’d be safer if I was actually dead instead of just _pretending_ all this time.” The face he makes, it’s like the words are cutting up the inside of his throat.

Courfeyrac straightens and glares raggedly at Grantaire. “This has been your secret to keep for nine years, and I appreciate the sentiment behind it. But you know what?” He digs his fingers under the lip of the countertop until they whiten with the strain. “It's not your choice anymore. It’s ours. And -” 

He pushes away from the counter, catches up Grantaire’s hand and curls his fingers around it. “I choose this. This, and you, and all that comes with. You don’t get a say.”

Grantaire watches Courfeyrac’s thumb push back his sleeve to stroke patterns over the pale red stripe circling his wrist. He says, gravely, not moving, “I can’t protect you.”

“No,” Courfeyrac agrees. The pad of his thumb skirts the edge of a scab. “That you managed to do so for nine years is miracle enough.”

Grantaire bends carefully, dark curls falling into his face, bringing their joined hands up to his mouth to brush a feathery kiss over Courfeyrac’s knuckles. A strangely aristocratic bow. “Thank you,” he murmurs against skin.

Combeferre touches a hand to Grantaire’s shoulder. “No. Thank _you._ ”

Grantaire lifts his head, and smiles, suddenly. “How about that tea, then?”

Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment, the water had lost its own. While Combeferre plugs the kettle back in, he says, over his shoulder, “Are you going to clean Enjolras’ apartment at some point?”

A rueful laugh. “Well. That’s one of the reasons I needed to talk to you. I didn’t feel that breaking into his rooms would leave a good impression.”

Courfeyrac tears his hands away, good-naturedly. “And it was fine with me?”

Grantaire looks at him, guileless. “Yes.”

“You’re a terrible human being.”

Grantaire just gives him a bright grin, and says to Combeferre, “My point is - could you do me a favor, please?”

The water in the kettle starts to seethe, and Combeferre unplugs it before it can whistle. Pouring water into their mugs, he replies, “I owe you far more than a favor or two. What do you need?”

“An appointment,” Grantaire says.

Combeferre smiles, a little devilishly, and hands him his tea. Courfeyrac drops a lemon slice in it as it passes under his nose. “That, I can do.”

\------

“How long until the committee finalizes the mark-ups?”

“Very little has changed since yesterday, Enjolras,” Combeferre reminds him.

“Humor me.”

“Well.” Enjolras settles back delicately into the chair, too-intense eyes fixed on Combeferre, listening. “Feuilly has said he might be able to testify; if we can get him here by Monday, it’ll be the last hearing, they’ll have no excuse to extend deliberations, and we should be able to force the bill out of committee by the Friday after next.”

“You’re certain there’s no quicker way?”

Combeferre suppresses a strange desire to laugh. “Have you seen the size of the thing? Of course you have. You wrote most of it.”

Enjolras flashes him a quick smile. “Don’t undersell your own contributions.”

Combeferre tilts his head in acknowledgement. “So we both know how difficult it’ll be to do a proper final check - not to mention they’ll all be wanting to slip in an earmark or five.” He leans forward. “But this does give us an advantage.”

Enjolras doesn’t _quite_ roll his eyes - he opens his mouth to respond, but Combeferre overrides him.

“Bahorel is the best whip the House has ever seen, Enjolras, but even he can’t work miracles. Having the House out of session gives us a lot more time to work on the Representatives, as well as get the Rules committee to move us up the schedule.”

He sighs. “Look, you can make speeches to stir the lowliest of souls. That’s a given. But the House adjourns on the twentieth, and the amount of work you’re putting in on this is already ridiculous. _Please_ give yourself Christmas, at least.”

There is a long moment, and Combeferre fervently hopes that something of what he’s said is sinking in. _You’re only human_ , he wants to shout, wants to shake Enjolras until the exhausted pinch between his eyebrows goes away. _I know we think you’re some deity incarnate. But you’re not, and I worry._

Enjolras seems lost in thought. The air in the office is still, peaceful, thick with the smell of old paper and ink. A beam of sun from the window high up in the corner catches a few floating dust motes, shines through the curls that have slipped from behind Enjolras’ ear, limning his profile in light. A hundred-year-old second - a re-imagining of countless ancient scenes. There is a sudden hot point of impossible fondness under Combeferre's ribs.

Enjolras turns his head, and it’s like a painting coming to life.

“You’re right,” he says. Combeferre lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“ _Thank_ you,” he says, briskly. “Now, your schedule for the rest of the day - Middle East’s chair has called an emergency subcommittee meeting to deal with Petro-Minette’s latest oil scam, that’ll be at one-thirty, at three you have a radio interview, you should set aside an hour or two for casework before the meeting with Professor Hodell on energy policy -”

“And who am I to lunch and debate with today?” Enjolras interrupts, amused. “That is what I am about to do, no? I notice you quite avoided the topic. It was a very graceful elision; I congratulate you.”

Combeferre grins. “Ah-ah-ah, that would be telling.”

He stands and retrieves his coat from the back of his chair. Enjolras echoes him, curious. “Telling? Telling what, exactly?”

“Your lunch is waiting. I suggest you find it.” Tugging a hat down over his ears, Combeferre adds, “Don’t leave him outside for long. In weather this cold, it might be construed as cruel. I’ll see you at one-thirty?”

His only answer is an unwillingly resigned sigh. Smiling to himself, Combeferre picks up his gloves and, with a little wave, steps into the hallway.

\------

Enjolras watches Combeferre leave, bemused. _This is highly irregular_ , he thinks, torn between laughter and frustration. But he’s gathering his papers and putting pens away and sliding on his coat, and he’s out the door before he can let himself wonder why.

He nods to the Spirit of Justice on his way past; no matter how reprehensible the actions taken in her name by politicians past, Justice with her flame is mother by right of the Statue of Liberty. At the foot of the stairs, he pauses.

It _is_ cold. Enjolras’ breath puffs out in a white cloud, and he suppresses a convulsive shiver at the sudden gust of wind. Jamming his gloved hands further into his pockets, he sucks in a breath past clenched teeth.

“You look miserable,” a voice says cheerfully from his left.

“I am perfectly fine,” he says, baleful, turning - and he doesn’t know what he expected, really. Of course.

“Grantaire.” He notices that the other man has a wicker basket swinging from one of his mittens. “Lunch?”

“Lunch,” Grantaire agrees, easily. He must catch the faint flicker of horror in Enjolras’ eyes, because he does a little sideways smile and says, “Inside, I promise.”

“Where?” Enjolras says, suspicious; when Grantaire moves to walk away, he falls into step beside him.

Grantaire sneaks him a sideways look. “I know it’s traditional to go out properly at least once before you take me home, but... your apartment.”

“So is that what this is?”

“Hardly,” Grantaire snorts, bouncing on the balls of his feet as they wait for a pedestrian symbol. “No, _this_ is an intervention. I am intervening between you and an abyss as deep as any circle of Hell ever dreamed up by Dante.”

They do seem to be following the most direct route to Enjolras’ apartment. He idly considers his lack of anxiety at the discovery that Grantaire apparently knows exactly where he lives. “Dramatic,” he comments.

“Well.” They reach the frosted glass doors of the Woodward Building; Enjolras holds one open for Grantaire, and follows him in. The gust of warm air is like a benediction. “Dramatic, perhaps; but accurate nonetheless. Did Combeferre warn you last night?” Enjolras watches Grantaire tug his mittens off with his teeth, picnic basket hanging from the crook of his elbow. Tucking them under his armpits, he leans to punch the elevator’s call-button.

“He told me that his and Courfeyrac’s homes had been bugged, and that I should hold my tongue in case mine was too, if that’s what you mean.” The elevator _dings_ into position.

“Exactly!” Grantaire grins. “And I am your friendly neighborhood exterminator.” He scrapes a foot behind him in the beginnings of a curtsy, nose bitten red from the cold and eyes sparkling. “After you, milady.”

“You would make a terrible handmaiden,” Enjolras says, and sweeps past him.

When they’re both inside the elevator, and the doors have hissed shut, Enjolras says, “I’m sorry.”

Grantaire just looks at him. Enjolras’ hand twitches with the sudden urge to wipe away the hooded loneliness in his eyes.  “It must have been hard,” he says, instead, and curls his fingers into his palms.

“Oh, harder than anything.” Grantaire studies the brushed metal tiles of the elevator walls. He gives a short, light laugh, and meets Enjolras’ eyes, as if he’s decided something. “But at the same time, everything became easier, because I could be really good, or I could fail - _tabula rasa_ \- literally, since I didn’t actually exist, anymore. And I was _really_ good.”

“We should stop apologizing,” Grantaire adds, as the elevator judders to a stop. “Motion seconded,” Enjolras says dryly, and they step out onto the tenth floor landing. 

When Grantaire leads them straight to his door, Enjolras almost has to reevaluate his anxiety level. Almost.

He unlocks the door for Grantaire, who slips past him into the darkened room. Toeing off his shoes, he presses a finger to his lips and gestures for Enjolras to stay in the doorway. He sets the picnic basket carefully on the floor and moves out of the faint arc of light cast by the open door.

Enjolras leans against the doorjamb and watches. Grantaire runs his hands along the walls and the undersides of the furniture; he balances on the arm of the sofa to check the tops of the fan blades, lifts photos delicately from their frames and taps along the space behind the pictures lining the walls. Twice, a knife flashes bright in the gloom to scrape away something Enjolras can’t quite make out; a quick dull crunch, and Grantaire ducks down to scoop the debris into a bag.

It is strangely beautiful to watch, a dance half-lost in shadow.

Grantaire hesitates at the bedroom door; Enjolras answers his unspoken question with a flick of a wrist. The cheshire smile Grantaire gives him in return seems to hang in the air even after the door has clicked open and Grantaire has disappeared inside.

When he comes out again, silent minutes later, Enjolras hasn’t moved. “You can breathe now,” Grantaire says, going for the picnic basket at Enjolras’ feet. “And maybe take off your jacket as well?” He straightens, eyebrow arched in amusement.

If Enjolras had been ten years younger, or Courfeyrac, he might have stuck his tongue out in response. But he is neither, so he doesn’t. He does, however, take off his coat; Grantaire had draped his own over the back of the sofa, and Enjolras picks that up as well before hanging them both on the hooks near the door. On his way past, he flicks on the main lights.

When he turns around, Grantaire has already taken out a ridiculously orange tablecloth, and is flicking it over the low coffee table. When the billows of cloth have settled somewhat, he gives Enjolras a wide grin and says, “Sit, sweet Kate, and I shall serve thee.”

Enjolras snorts, but moves over to the couch, settles gingerly on the edge of the cushions. “Do you fancy yourself a conqueror, then?”

“Not at all,” Grantaire says, unpacking plates from the hamper beside him. “But in one respect, at least, you must admit the analogy is apt - the ravages of time could hardly make me the worse to look upon.”

“Perhaps more apt than you think, and more directly from the text,” Enjolras finds himself saying.

“Oh?” Grantaire’s hands pause in the act of unwrapping a waxed paper package.

Enjolras thinks of the face he’d seen in Paris - calm, confident, _sure_. The poise that comes with awareness of skill. “Success suits you,” he replies; that isn’t it, though, not quite. Self disgust had not sat half so well upon his face as do the beginnings of contentment.

Grantaire hums noncommittally; but there is a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth when his hands resume their work. “Well, well. You and Shakespeare. Jehan?”

“Jehan,” Enjolras sighs.

“How is he?”

“He’s doing well.” Curious, Enjolras watches Grantaire take out a toaster and plug it into the wall. “He published a poetry anthology last year, although I expect you’re already aware of that.”

Grantaire grins up at him from where he is crouched by the power socket. 

Enjolras makes a decision. “He runs A B C’s freedom of speech and publication operations. Were you aware of that as well?”

Grantaire’s head jerks up; he puts the bagel in his hands down, slowly, face inscrutable. When he speaks, it’s not an answer. “You don’t need to tell me anything.”

“No,” Enjolras agrees, eyes fixed on Grantaire’s. “I don’t. But I think you may already know, and I think we can trust you.”

Grantaire exhales, and sits back on his heels. “There’s scores of governments out for your hides, you know.”

“Only those whose personal interest is first of all that their people should be weak and miserable and incapable of ever resisting them. If they want us dead it’s because they’re scared of what their own people can do; we really only serve as a living link between initiatives all over the world.”

“So, what, you fund their coups?” There is a strange sort of challenge in his eyes. “Down with the tyrant, here, have some guns?”

“ _No_ ,” Enjolras snaps.

“You’re the one who was always on fire for revolutions -”

“ _Our own, in our time_. Revolutions are a natural progression from the necessity of change, but their right must _always_ be derived from their own people. If the support they need has to come from another country, then they’re unripe and unfit. The fire they burn with has to be the soul of their own citizenry.”

“So what about your money? Where’s it going?”

“Infrastructure.” He leans forward. “Education. Forums for discussion. Local businesses. A person who earns more than a living, who knows more than survival, who has time to _think_ \- surpluses, the building blocks of civilization - that person is far more weaponized than if they’d just been given a gun.” Enjolras smiles, sharp and brilliant. “And if the people thus armed can no longer tolerate their oppression, well - those who hunt us have every reason to be absolutely _terrified_.”

Grantaire is grinning, eyes alight. “Yes.” He laughs. “Yes, you can trust me.”

Enjolras sits back. “Is our cynic so changed, then, that rhetoric moves him?”

“Unfortunately not.” His voice is mild. “But a world in which I am right is a world I don’t think I can bear to live in. I have to believe in you. Otherwise...” He trails off, and he repeats, softly, suffocated, “I have to. I _have_ to.”

He picks up the bagel again, almost mechanically, drops it into the toaster and brushes the crumbs from his fingers. Then he lifts his head to meet Enjolras’ eyes, face carefully blank. “And I have to trust you.”

A cold hand unfurls in the pit of Enjolras’ stomach. “You don’t need to tell me anything, “ he says, returning Grantaire’s words, an offering.

“Oh, but I do.” Steady, quiet. “Here’s the most important thing - I knew they were going to take me. Not when, though, and I imagine Moscow made the situation worse; but I knew. We’d arranged it a while ago - they snatch me up, smash me around a bit, and when I get home not having spilled state secrets, Uncle Sam takes his loyal compatriot to his breast and I get better access to bigger state secrets. Mainly nuclear repositories, where, how many, what types. That sort of thing.”

Icy fingers scrape across Enjolras’ heart. Grantaire sees the look on his face and quirks a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

“I’m running a triple already - giving classifieds to the Russians that the US monitors, but the Russians know they’re being fed, so I get them extras. They think I’m theirs.” His voice drops. “They have someone I care about, and they don’t even know it, but they don’t have me.”

“Who does?” It’s strange, speaking past the hand pressing its knuckles into his windpipe. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Grantaire looks at him, eyes clear straight blue.

 _It’s always been you_. Plural, singular. 

Singular.

“What are you going to do?”

“Now?” Grantaire breathes out. “I’m going to make you eat bagels and lox.”

“They’ll kill you.” Flat.

Grantaire plucks the two bagel halves from the toaster and stands, fluidly. “If they catch me. Split?”

“Please.” He tracks the motion of Grantaire’s wrist as he uncaps a small, paper-labeled pot of cheese and spreads it smoothly over the toasted bagel. A fold of salmon next, dusky pink with a slick, salty sheen - a sprinkle of capers, and the plate is pushed across the table. Enjolras picks it up, cautiously.

“Combeferre tells me you forget to eat,” Grantaire says, conversationally, as he stacks his own half. Enjolras would respond, but the bread is warm against his fingers and his stomach has chosen this moment to remind his brain that he actually _hasn’t_ eaten since lunch yesterday.

Perhaps Combeferre is right; at the moment, he doesn’t care, because the flavors on his tongue are frankly absurd and he’s closing his eyes in bliss, and Grantaire is laughing at him and he _still doesn’t care_.

“It’s not the stuffed carp of our university days, but I hope it suffices,” Grantaire says, with a wide smile. Enjolras can only hum his agreement. Grantaire is delighted. “If you were a cat, you’d be purring, I swear to _God_.”

It’s nice. It’s beyond nice. But the hand in his chest has unexpected hold of his ribs; it’s new and unfamiliar and he can’t stop himself thinking _be careful, be careful_ like the thump of his heart.

 _Be safe_ is even worse, because it’s impossible.

\------

Combeferre is waiting for them at the steps to the Rayburn building. Before they get within hailing distance, Enjolras touches Grantaire’s elbow, and they stop.

He raises a questioning eyebrow; Grantaire sighs out a smile. “I never imagined you wouldn’t tell him. No further, though?”

“No further,” Enjolras agrees. He hesitates, then says, “R. Don’t forget to visit.”

There might have been something else he was going to add, but his face is once more inscrutable and Grantaire is nine years out of practice at reading Enjolras’ masks. So he laughs. “Oh, you’re stuck with me whether you like it or not.”

Enjolras catches his wrist when he turns to leave. “Please. We’ll all be here for Christmas.”

“Then I won’t possibly be able to stay away,” Grantaire says solemnly. He gets a slow-blooming smile and a final press of his wrist, and Enjolras is gone.

Grantaire watches until the tall, red-jacketed figure has rejoined his more calmly attired friend - although right now Combeferre seems to be gesticulating rather enthusiastically about something, and his coat looks like it’s in danger of taking flight.

Then he goes to search for a telephone booth. He picks one on a relatively empty corner of Independence Avenue, next to a magazine hawker waving issues with the words “Lucy: a Diamond in the Earth” splashed all over them (so _that’s_ what Combeferre was so excited about).

The cool glass of the booth is solid against his forehead; he clutches the black plastic ‘phone to his ear, and half-hopes that his boss won’t pick up.

He does. “Who’s calling?”

“R,” Grantaire says. He closes his eyes, remembers the feel of Enjolras’ fingers around his wrist. “We need to talk.”


	3. Chapter 3

He tells them everything, in the end. Well. Not _everything_. Perhaps - perhaps more than he had originally intended. Everyone talks, after all - it’s a rule of life around here.

It takes rather longer than it had with Enjolras. Of course, Enjolras hadn’t wanted him dead.

\------

“They’re lying.”

“What?”

“Soviet germ warfare and that waste of a convention. You know, the one going into effect in March? Worthless. Okhotnik’s developed an aerosolized plague-encephalomyelitis hybrid - I’ve a bird sang straight in my ear.”

_“Bullshit.”_

“Gold, and you’d be a fool to pass it up.”

“You’re a fool to think we can trust you.” Pause. “Primary source?”

“The real deal. Chemist at Biopreparat.”

“ _Jesus._ Jesus.” Over the tape, a grainy thump, the scrape of a chair pushing back. “And you’re sure they’re - you know what? I _don’t_ trust you.” Ice clatters in a glass. “I’ll have you fluttered.”

Silence.

“And if I say no.”

“Then you _burn_ , motherfucker.”

Static hisses through the speakers.

At last, a short, coughed laugh, and a flippant “Sure.”

The tape spins out. It’s a while before someone reaches out to stop it.

“He’s asked for Whitehall’s girl.”

“Well, the polygraph techs say he scans true - give him what he wants.”

“He’s just trying to keep his skin in one piece, you know -”

“Yeah.”

“You gonna risk it?”

“A story like this? You kidding?”

“Okay, _okay._ I got it. I’ll get one of our Moscow people to arrange a meeting. Just -”

“Yeah. I know. If it’s any consolation, I’m not going to waste a joe on this. He doesn’t come out, that’s his goddamn business.”

\------

His hands are shaking. He watches them, as if from a great distance; then he sits on them and curls over, nose to his knees, eyes open.

Waiting.

_Fuck_ waiting.

A door opens somewhere, swings shut with a slow creak; footsteps echo on the tiling. Tap-tap- tap, coming closer. He doesn’t move.

Someone sits down beside him.

“Look at me, R,” Musichetta says. Sharp, nearly. He can almost hear her biting her tongue.

He tilts his head, but doesn’t lift it. There’s hair in his eyes, and she’s sideways; well, a lot of things are sideways, now. One more shouldn’t matter.

It does, a bit.

_Come on._

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She leans her elbows on her knees and bends until her face is inches from his own. She closes her eyes, briefly; he considers the bright gold of her eyeliner against dark skin. “Sorry. _Sorry._ Better question. Why did you tell anybody at all?”

“I had to pick something eventually,” he tells her. “Flipped a coin. None of the realities were good enough, so - left or right, the rivers of time, path less traveled by and all that, although I suppose in the end there isn’t much of a difference to be made at all, it’s grey both sides - which was the whole point -”

“Shh.” She bumps her forehead against his, and he breathes out, shuts his eyes. “Anyway. You know why.”

He feels her sit back, hears her sigh. “Yes.” _They threatened the people you love beyond all hope of salvation._ A rustle of cloth as she crosses her legs. “And the other news? Your bait?”

“Not a bait,” he says, to his knees. “And that’s why -” he levers himself up, frees his hands, stretches in a luxurious spine-cracking reach, rolls his head to fix Musichetta with over-bright eyes - “ _that’s_ why I wanted you. You’re still the best there is. Let’s go out with a bang, as it were.”

“How crude,” she says, with a quirk of a smile. He just arches an eyebrow, expectant. “Well?”

“Of course, you idiot.” And then, quieter, “Of course.” She reaches out to grip his knee and pins him with a fierce glare. “And if I have anything to say about it, we’ll both - no, you shut up - _both_ be here to see the spring on the other side.”

“Spring?” He laughs. “Oh, I’m aiming for October, at least. Think we can make it?”

“Shut _up_ ,” she says, and he thinks he might not be imagining the quiet desperation in the scrunch of her mouth.

He wraps his fingers tightly around the hand on his knee. “First things first. Prove the bird’s not a setup. They give you any idea when shit’s going to hit the fan?”

“Two weeks ‘till the first drop.” Her nose wrinkles, and she adds, “There’s an awful lot of money going into four days on the ground.”

“Four days, huh.” He looks at her, evaluating, then smirks. “Oh, ‘Chetta’s going to miss the family Christmas!”

She bites her lip, grinning. “Oops.”

“Although I suppose there’s always New Year,” he muses, and twitches away when she swats at him. “‘Chetta, _darling_ , you’re getting so _thin,_ you absolutely _must_ try this crumble - and we saved the entire Christmas pudding just for _you_ -”

“Oh, stop,” she moans, and hides her face in her hands. Her voice comes muffled through fingers. “Save me, _please._ ”

“Moscow, baby,” he crows.

\------ 

The telephone rings from the kitchen.

Combeferre looks up, blinking, from the tiny text of Kapitsa‘s seminal work on high-power microwave electronics. He sighs, and closes it with gentle finality. He’s already been interrupted three times tonight; one last, and he’s going to _bed_. Kapitsa, it seems, is just not meant to be.

He finds himself stifling a yawn as he pads down the hallway; realizes, with quiet amusement, that he might simply need sleep (Courfeyrac had said so, at dinner; perhaps he had been a little hasty in dismissing his friend’s concern.)

A last cup of tea, then. He unhooks the phone from its wall-mount, props it between ear and shoulder and reaches to fill the kettle. “Hello?”

“Hey,” a voice says. “Combeferre?”

Combeferre’s hand stills on the faucet. “R.” He turns away from the counter and shifts the phone into a more secure grip. “You okay?”

A quick laugh. “Not important. Listen, I won’t be able to make Christmas - don’t worry, nothing major, just - don’t save me a seat or anything. Actually, wait, that could be interesting, it’d be like the prophet Elijah at Passover. Door propped open, wineglass at the ready. Tintoretto’s _Christmas Dinner_.” The words are low and spoken hastily, carried on a murmuring buzz of sound.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Combeferre says. He wraps a finger carefully in the black coil of the cord. “There’ll be a place here whenever you want it, you know. And nobody’s leaving ‘till -”

“ _Don’t._ ” The crackling voice in his ear cuts him off. “Don’t tell me anything. A phonebox doesn’t entirely guarantee privacy.” Breath rustles against the microphone in a slow exhale. “But thanks. Just wait, I’ll be turning up on your doorstep in the middle of a thunderstorm like something out of a horror flick.”

“Offer still stands, no matter the meteorological conditions of your arrival,” Combeferre tells him.

“I’ll hold you to that.” The undercurrent of noise swells, and Combeferre hears Grantaire’s voice sharpen. “Shit, look, I gotta go. Watch yourself, okay? Any suspicious cars stick around too long, call the police and do another bug sweep.” The line _clunks_ off abruptly.

It’s a long while before Combeferre replaces the ‘phone on its hook. He makes the tea almost mechanically; the refrigerator hums and his Lady Kenmore dishwasher mutters wetly to itself. A clock ticks from a shelf in the dining room.

On nights when he can’t sleep, the house’s slow creak keeps him company; it’s calming, even in the absence of his friends, because these walls hold the echoes of their laughter as much as any other place in the world. A living silence, space to breathe and think -

The air is thicker tonight. He cradles the mug close to his chest, and goes to bed.

\------

“Passport, please, Mister...?” says the harried attendant behind the console.

“Rieff,” Grantaire supplies, sliding his passport across the scuffed plastic countertop. “Charles Rieff.” He withdraws his hand and sticks it carelessly into his jacket pocket, allowing a trace of impatience to show in the slant of his shoulders. “And if you don’t mind, ma’am, I’ll take an aisle seat.”

The attendant isn’t amused. Grantaire can see the easy dismissal in the way her eyes flick up to him and back down to the passport, opened to an artfully muddied photograph - a floater he’d brushed up two nights ago. _Just another oblivious American._

She spends a little longer than necessary scanning his information, and when she speaks her Czech accent rides a little thicker around the words in a faint suggestion of scorn. “I’m sorry, sir, but we have only two seats left; can I interest you in a window?”

“Sure, no problem,” he grumbles, and clicks his credit card onto the counter. The computer accepts it without a complaint, and the attendant’s fingers begin to fly with satisfying speed across the keyboard. Grantaire refuses to think about the prickling across the back of his neck, and instead lets Mr. Rieff begin a spectacularly tuneless whistle.

He might see the attendant smile in spite of herself, but that would mean he was paying attention. The clack of keys stops, and the machine spits out a long strip of paper. “Your boarding pass, sir.”

Grantaire smoothes a hand down his suit jacket (hopefully not too badly wrinkled by a couple of hours spent perched in the terminal bathroom) before reaching out to take the paper. “Thank you.” He tips her a wink and walks past the console into the boarding tunnel, hefting his suitcase briefly, checking its weight, still whistling.

The attendant doesn’t spare him a second thought, and Grantaire doesn’t breathe until he’s settled into a tacky leather seat near the back of the plane and he’s saying “Seltzer water, please,” to the cold grey wheels of the drinks cart.

Grantaire departed for London on the morning flight; he’s bought a ticket on the eleven o’clock train to Coventry, and he’s expected at twelve by discreet old Mrs. Highbourne, who owns a bed and breakfast in the suburbs. Whitehall has grudgingly agreed to provide him with a paper trail beyond that. If anybody’s crossing the curtain, it’s only Mister Rieff, the travelling executive from DC who took the standby seat on the last Ilyushkin flight to Czechoslovakia.

Grantaire looks out of the window at the sun-bleached runway. Once on Czecho soil, Mister Rieff will take a bathroom break, and Rouchon his place and the overnight to Moscow. Another passport, another passable floater. Grantaire’s good at those.

Langley has the Czech network, so they’re taking care of Rieff. There’s a Joe who’s agreed to play the part, in exchange for safe conduct out and a peaceful end to his career.

Touch down at Vnukovo airport; catch the rail to Kiyevskiy terminal. A taxi to the hotel on Tverskaya street - which is a second-rater concrete block, because Rouchon’s a publisher who can’t afford much better.

He knocks his head once against the thick smudged plastic of the window, an aimless anxiety crawling between his shoulderblades. Nothing he can do until the plane lands on the other side of the Atlantic; everything’s been ironed as straight as two frantic weeks can achieve. So - sleep.

It’s an underappreciated skill of his. Grantaire leans his head into the intersection between headrest and plastic wall, and is unconscious almost as soon as his eyes close.

\------

Musichetta’s waiting for him behind the door of his hotel room.

“Oh, thank God,” Grantaire sighs, letting the lock drop into place behind him. “‘Chetta, this hotel is ugly as hell.”

“It’s a masterpiece of Stalinist architecture,” she informs him, pulling herself up into a sitting position and crossing her ankles primly. “A... beauty mark on Moscow’s skyline.” He snorts laughter, and she gives him a feline smile. Crooks a finger. _Drop your bag and get over here._

He complies. There’s a glittering array of technology lined up neatly on the bedspread in front of her; Grantaire elects to fold himself into the armchair beside the bed rather than risk the displacement of an integral piece.

“How was the flight?” _Did everything go as planned,_ she means, and her eyes are sharp on his face. “Smooth as butter,” he says.

“Good,” she says, briskly. “Here’s a list of your meetings over the next few days.” She hands him a curved silver box connected to a coil of flesh-colored wire and a small earpiece. It’s one of a pair, the new matched handsets that hop frequency like bedbugs. Musichetta’s got the other.

“Doesn’t look like tomorrow’s very busy,” he says, weighing the box in his palm. It should fit cleanly under his suit.

“You’ll still be too jetlagged to deal with bureaucrats. I’ve given you the morning off - go take a walk.”

“A street crawl? Or do you know the nearby parks?” _Where did our defector agree to?_

“I’d suggest Filevskiy Park, if you’re not averse to a bit of exercise before you get there. It’s probably the cleanest space you’ll find in Moscow. Worth the walk.”

“I’m sure there’s a rail line.” He tips his head back, studies the odd waterstains dotting the ceiling. “Filevskiy. That’s along the Moskva, right?” _Give me some specifics, that place is fucking huge._

She hums agreement. “My taxi driver brought me here the long way; we ended up going through the Shmitovskiy passage, I guess he thought I wouldn’t notice. Anyway, you can see a bend of the river through the park when you turn off Minskaya, like something out of the sixteenth century.” _Look along the river walk there._

A bench? Likely, Grantaire thinks. The park also seems a reasonable choice; out of the city center, but not so far as to make the laboratory suspicious about an employee’s curiously long lunch break.

A thought strikes him, and he laughs, an odd half-strangled sound in his ears. It seems he must always be catching other people’s stolen minutes; what was hours (days, weeks) of preparation on his side is simply a lunch break to, say, this Sulkhanishvili.

“Yes,” he says aloud, meeting Musichetta’s probing gaze blithely. “Moscow certainly has its moments. What was that quote?” He twirls his wrist theatrically and waggles his eyebrows. “‘Moscow, embryo of the new world, still wears the old carcass of an Asian village.’ Le Corbusier.”

“Christ,” Musichetta snorts, and sets about gathering up the serried ranks in front of her, tucking each piece into its pocket in a nondescript leather case open at her side. “That must be an old one.”

“And yet enough of its truth remains,” he says, linking his hands behind his head and relaxing into the barely-adequate padding of the armchair. “Moscow may have scavenged itself a concrete shell, but the Muscovites carry their history with tenacity. Another forty years is but a featherweight.”

The look she casts him says plainly that if they weren’t in the middle of Soviet Russia, she might debate the nature of that feather - but this is Moscow, where even the birds can be expected to report your words to the nearest authority. Musichetta stands up decisively while Grantaire is fondly remembering the time he sketched bundles of lambs’ ears all over the wallpaper of one of the Slavyanskaya’s least prepossessing rooms.

“I’ll see you at the Soyuzkniga function tomorrow evening, then,” she says. Soyuzkniga is a Soviet firm interested in the (limited) dissemination of international literature; Rouchon is allegedly here to try to sell them some of his company’s safer titles.

“Of course, of course,” he says, getting to his feet. The room is so small that he only has to take a couple of steps to cross it and lay a light kiss on Musichetta’s cheek.

_Good luck_ , her eyes say, and then she is gone, and the door swings shut behind Mr. Rouchon’s secretary, rumored lover.

(That’s all it is, a rumor, and that’s all it’s ever been; he’s about as celibate as a corkscrew, but lust has never entered this particular equation. They keep each other sane and in one piece, only that. It’s everything.)

Exhaustion is a sick knot behind his breastbone, but he ignores the mattress‘ siren call - there are convincing arguments to plan. The others had always been better at this; but Grantaire has spent ten years under pressure of necessity. Ms. Sulkhanishvili doesn’t stand a chance.

\------

Eventually, he sleeps. Not for long; but sleep he does, and dream, although he cannot remember it when he wakes in the morning to the filtered Moscow sunshine.

Here is what he dreamt:

There was no trial. An officer of the KGB had followed Grantaire to the meeting (had he been indiscreet in the company of a turncoat? Yes, and no, and since this was a dream it didn’t matter, except that the weight of blame fell cleanly on him); the officer had seen - heard - enough. Had seen a kiss upon a cheek in a garden two thousand years ago. Had known the eight immediately, had recognized their pamphlets, had put ten and ten together and gotten - a death sentence. There was no trial.

There was no hemlock to be given or taken where they kept Enjolras; and if Alcibiades had failed in his seduction during simpler times, such attempts could only go worse in the prison days. Love is whatever you can still betray. No matter how he scratched at the walls of his friends’ incarceration, he could not get in, he could not make the stone understand, he could not sway the walls; and the one who could was silenced behind them in their darkness as punishment for the light he had hoped to make. Grantaire dug his fingers into brick until his nails tore.

He could not make them understand it was a death _he_ had brought -

So he hid under the belly of the great truck, the truck that brought the prisoners to the firing squad, and the days flickered implausibly until the steel engine juddered to life and set off to the socialism of the gallows.

It was to be public - it was to be quiet and furtive - it was to be small and brave and nowhere at all. An example must be made. It would be better if nobody knew. Grantaire crawled across endless fuselage and up, to perch on the back of the truck.

Through the metal, he felt the faintest suggestion of heat; because dreams lend surety where there can be none, he knew that it was Enjolras on the other side. He spread his fingers as wide as they would go, but, like the stone, the metal would not yield.

The crowd roared. Twelve round black muzzles pressed them up against the wall, and the crowd roared. He could see their faces distorted, gaping, and he knew they roared - but there was no sound, not a whisper. Enjolras shone beside him, a shock of gold in the grey mass of the square. Enjolras, straight as an arrow and as sure. The crowd surged up around them -

There was no crowd. There was only a wide green meadow and the twelve guns and Enjolras’ golden hair and a slight coldness at the back of his neck, that’s all.

\------

As it turns out, his subtle plan of attack is unnecessary; Ketevan Sulkhanishvili needs no convincing.

He had arrived early, with two copies of the Moskovskiye Novosti tucked under an elbow; the benches weren’t empty, but none of them contained the brilliant chemist he’d met last summer at a dacha-party in the countryside.

He’d settled on the emptiest bench, sheltered under the spreading limbs of an mulberry tree. The second copy of the Novosti went on the space beside him, the first, flicked halfway open and its folds smoothed, leaving his peripheral vision unimpaired.

She arrives twenty minutes later, when the Cyrillic is just beginning to glitter and slide beneath his eyes. He can see her out of the corner of his eye, a quick golden figure walking with contained intensity towards him. It’s only when she picks up the folded newspaper on the seat beside him and slips into place that he allows himself to look up and meet her eyes.

“Call me Keto,” she says, holding out a small hand. “If we’re going to mean each other’s certain death, we might as well be on familiar terms, no?”

Her clear hazel eyes are serious, but the tilt of her eyebrows indicates a lurking humor. Graveyard humor, he thinks, and reaches over to grasp her hand. “R,” he says. Keto’s grip is strong and sure, just like the rest of her. She’s drawn in bold strokes, not short but sturdy, and sleekly built, with a wicked mouth and darkly curving eyebrows.

“How long do I have you for?” he asks softly, closing the newspaper and sliding it into the outer pocket of his suitcase; in an undertone, he adds, “Do you need anything right away?”

“Twenty minutes,” she says. “And no. I’m as safe as anybody here right now, and my children are in Svaneti with their grandparents.”

“Okay.” He glances at his watch. If she already knows she wants to do this, there’ll be time enough and more to dismiss Langley’s suspicions about her motivations. “Okay. We have some questions, but I can get them started on exit papers pretty much instantaneously. Is a month enough to sort out your affairs?”

“No,” she answers, steadily. “I’m staying here.”

His heart sinks, but her eyes on him don’t show a flicker of doubt. He knows the answer; still, he can’t let her sentence herself without asking. “Why? It’ll get more and more difficult to pull you out, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

“I have civilian projects, too,” she says with a small smile. “That was why I chose this profession, you know. Creating vaccines and the like isn’t all we do, of course, which is why you’re here; but I like to think I’m vital enough that my loss would do a great disservice to our more beneficent operations.”

A defector-in-place. Infinitely more useful, infinitely more terrible; she had been right about the certainty of death, then.

“That too,” she says, at his silence. “You might get more out of me. Is that what you’re thinking? Because I’ll do anything to stop the monstrosity we’ve created. The more information I can give you, the better.”

“I’m thinking you have a very slim chance of survival,” he tells her honestly. “And that you are extraordinarily brave.”

She bends her head to study her fingernails. “No,” she says, quietly. “Without me, they couldn’t have done anything, and I let myself be used. This is the least I can do. This I must do. It is not a question of bravery.” She smiles faintly, and looks up. “You said you had questions.”

Keto, to doubt you would be a _crime_ , he says silently. But he asks the questions, and she answers easily, with certainty. Musichetta listens at his ear.

There is a minute left of her twenty when he finishes. He goes to rise; she stops him with a hand on his wrist. “You will be the one, no? The one to come and take my testimony?”

“If you would have me,” he says.

“I would.” She smiles. “You seem straight enough, for one of your profession; and it occurs to me that to play such a role here does not come without its own dangers.”

There is an unspoken question at the end of her sentence, and he answers, mirroring her, “I would.”

“Good.” The smile on her face is genuine now, and gentle. Keto stands; he follows suit.

She turns to him when they have both gathered up their belongings, Keto her handbag and Grantaire his briefcase. “R. My father once told me that the men of his country, the men of Georgia, they used to go into battle with a grape cutting tied to their breast, underneath the armor, so that if they were killed a new grapevine could grow on their corpse, and all would not be lost.”

She presses a hand to the bare skin below her left collarbone. She had brushed her fingers absently over the same spot, earlier; _my children are with their grandparents._ “I carry mine always. Do not forget yours.”

“Ketevan Sulkhanishvili, it is an _honor_ ,” he tells her.

\------

Rouchon attends the Soyuzkniga dinner with Musichetta on his arm, clad in a sweep of rose-gold silk.

They’re glowingly received, and tentative deals are sounded out; but Grantaire senses that Rouchon’s putative partners stand very little chance of his continued acquaintance. Jehan would be ecstatic, he thinks regretfully when a twitchy ginger-haired man pulls him aside to show him what seems to be an uncensored copy of _The Master and Margarita_. Mousey Rouchon, on the other hand, is simply all too aware of the trouble such a manuscript might cause for his company if the Soviets decide to quibble.

Grantaire spends the night distractedly trying to recall the niggling recognition that had stung him that morning, on the bench with Keto; the sensation is not unlike the gap left by a lost baby tooth, and it aches absently right up until the moment they are being handed into their taxi by an over-effusive new friend, when Musichetta glances up at him over her shoulder. With a shock, he remembers Keto’s enigmatic half-smile as she turned to leave; the world spins, and settles. _Of course._

“Hey,” Musichetta says, leaning back out of the taxi door. “Everything all right?”

He had frozen with one foot on the running board of the car. With an effort, he unsticks himself, and swings into the dark interior, saying, “Yes, yes - fine -”

Their new friend shuts the door behind him with a final, jovial wave, and Grantaire relaxes into the seat with a sigh.

“Thinking of home?” Musichetta says. Her eyes are alive with sympathy in the juddering gloom.

“Actually, yes,” he admits; Combeferre’s voice is still in his ears, slightly tinny with distance and time.

\------

During a three-hour layover in Warsaw, and while Musichetta is reading in the departure lounge, Grantaire disappears.

She occupies her curiosity by calculating how far he might have traveled into the city as each minute slips away. Is the traffic reduced by post-holiday lassitude, or worsened by an influx of vacationers?

An idle thought - what sort of tourist demographic would come here, and how many? If at all. She resolves to find out the next time she has access to Whitehall’s white-faced paper-pushers.

Statistics are always useful. She’s never liked Warsaw.

He returns two hours later, suit spotless, hair unruffled, breathing even, no new bruises. Musichetta spares him only a cursory glance as he sits down across from her.

“You’re later than usual,” she says, and turns the page.

\------

“Come with me?” he asks her, although he already knows the answer. They’re waiting at the baggage claim, as yet unwilling to brave the hail of New York’s yellow taxi men.

“I can’t, R, the relatives would have my guts for garters,” she grumbles. “You can handle it perfectly well on your own.”

“That hasn’t been true for ten years, and it was a half-truth before that,” he points out.

“Fine,” she says. The pull of her suitcase against her shoulder isn’t helping her mood. “But from what little you’ve said, you’re hardly dealing with a hostile audience.”

He blows out a long breath. A bit like a kettle, she thinks uncharitably, then has to laugh. “I’m sorry,” she gasps, suppressing the rising bubble of hysteria.

Grantaire’s eyes are warm with affection. “I know, I know. Planes make you cranky.” His smile turns wicked, and he adds, “You’re not even in London yet. I don’t envy the person who comes to pick you up.”

“You’re awful,” she says.

An inclined head in acknowledgement. Then his expression grows serious. “If it gets too unbearable,” and he takes her free hand, turns it over, uncaps a pen with his teeth, “just call me. They’ve spare beds enough for the Ramsays _and_ their lighthouse-keeper.”

She watches him scrawl the unfamiliar digits on the back of her hand. “Whose is this?” He wrinkles his nose, and she laughs again. “You’re going, then.”

“Like you said.” He leans back to survey his handiwork; the numbers loop gracefully above her knuckles. He tucks the pen in his pocket and steps away. “I can handle it. That’s not even the issue here anyway, but, y’know. I’m selfish.”

“Wait.” She grabs his wrist and pulls it and the pen back out. “Is this your handler’s pen?”

The silver writing along the side proclaims his guilt plainly enough, but Grantaire just looks at her, eyes innocent. “Of course not. Who do you think I am?”

“Yourself,” she says, and releases him. “Serves them right.”

“A veritable banquet,” he agrees, and puts the pen away again. “No, really. The second that Christmas pudding appears, call me.”

“I’ll try not to. No phone calls during supper, remember?” She smiles. “Why, will you miss the sound of my voice?”

“Yes,” he says, and picks up his suitcase. “Coming?”

“Oh, fine,” she huffs, and follows him. “I’ve got seven hours until my flight. Entertain me.”

\------

“That one. Again, please,” Jehan demands.

“You want to learn it?” Bahorel is lying flat on his back, stretched out on the tail end of one of Combeferre’s long white couches.

“If I may?” Jehan sits up on the other couch and leans forward. “Where’s it from?”

“This one’s Romanian. A lover’s lament.” Bahorel shifts backwards, props his head up on the armrest, and resumes the song.

At the sound of his voice, stronger now than before, the room’s other occupants begin to blink out of their food-induced lethargy. Joly, curled on the soft, well-vacuumed carpet. Courfeyrac, lounging lynxlike along the top of the couch. Bossuet yawns from against the tall French windows, then coughs an imprecation and wriggles away from the cold glass.

Bahorel’s voice is deep and clear, surprisingly sweet. He’d been humming songs under his breath for the past hour; he does the most traveling of them all, initiating contact with groups all over the word, strengthening links and investigating newly-arisen situations like the installation of a dictator. There’s a lot of socialization, a lot of drinking - often, as the night wears on, singing and dancing. He comes back with vivid descriptions of the multiform flash of human limbs and legions of song kept safe in his memory.

Combeferre had been talking with Feuilly in the library one room away. He lifts his head, and Feuilly lapses into silence, listening with just as much intensity as Jehan. Aside from Bahorel, he and Jehan are the only two who have more than a passing acquaintance with the language.

The melody is convoluted and unusual, with strange intervals and semi-syncopated rhythms. After a while, Combeferre hears Jehan’s tenor join Bahorel’s in a low murmur. Their voices blend nicely; and soon Bahorel drops down into a twining bass line, moving independently from the middle voice that Jehan has taken up.

Combeferre breathes out, and turns noiselessly to Feuilly, whose forehead is creased in concentration. He sees Combeferre’s raised eyebrow; knowing exactly what his friend wants, Feuilly begins a quiet, measured recitation.

“Where are you, my little lost boy, where are you, you who loved me so much? Where is your tufted hair withering? Where did your eyes darken? The roses are flowering; I wish you could see our mountains again. The road is - too long - no matter how far you walk I cannot see you, you cannot return, your warrior’s heart is torn by a bullet. Instead of your mother’s tears, the night rain wets your chest, and an eagle from your homeland flies above you.”

Into the space that follows his words, and despite the lack of inclement weather, the doorbell rings.

Enjolras, sunk in thought at the kitchen counter, looks up.

\------

Here, perhaps, is a thing, a nested thing, that is was will be broken. Are you lying to yourself? If there were world enough, and time -

Void enough, breath enough - you’re not _thinking_ -

Is the leaving a liberty taken or given? A kept thing that a stumble more or less could half impair. Will you?  
Sometimes actions are questions, not answers.

He presses the doorbell.

_Wait - no, wait, wait, please -_

It opens.

“You came,” Enjolras says, blank and still like the coiled grasshoppers he’d held in his palm on hot June Sundays.

“Hanged for a sheep as for a lamb?” Grantaire offers. “Actually an entire flock. A gaggle. A murder.” He bites his tongue, curls his fingers around the leather handles of his suitcase.

“An exultation,” says Combeferre, behind Enjolras. “Come on in. It’s cold.”

Enjolras moves forward to take Grantaire’s bag. His fingers are warm and dry where they brush against Grantaire’s own.

His joints are stiff with chill, and it takes a bit of effort to untangle his hand. “Thanks,” he says, once he has succeeded, rolling his shoulder to ease the ache. Nearly five thousand miles of traveling and an exhausting meeting with a hostile handler exact a painful toll.

The air hums with expectation, an expectant hush echoing out of the house. He can hear it. _This of all things, this I cannot - this I never - I am a coward. In the face of it, I am a coward._ Grantaire draws a steadying breath. Gathers himself. And, with a strained smile for Combeferre, who is now beside him and has a reassuring hand on his shoulder - steps across the threshold.

It’s a palely beautiful house, a quiet white house, a gentle house. A house filled with eyes and faces and an almost desperate intensity, with the people he had thought he would never see again. An awful elation seizes his lungs; it mingles strangely with the horror already ice-cold in his chest. _How they must hate. How I’ve betrayed them - but you can only betray what you love, and I have betrayed for ten long years -_

Bahorel is the first. He surges up from his somnolent posture on the couch and crosses the house in a bound to wrap Grantaire tightly in strong arms. “You _fucker,_ ” he says. “I should strangle you now, make sure nobody gets to it before I do.”

Grantaire huffs, nose abruptly full of the half-forgotten smell of Bahorel’s aftershave. Bahorel, whose face he had tried so hard to memorize during that last certain hour, while he’d been mimicking inebriation with the recitation of some facetious comic poem. He has a beard now, and it tickles the top of Grantaire’s ear; but aside from deepened laugh lines and the thicker muscles that are virtually suffocating him, not much has changed.

Bahorel pulls back, shifting his grip to Grantaire’s elbows. “Don’t think I won’t.”

“Oh, I -” Helpless. “I - please. Better you than - another.” He strives for lightness, overwhelmed entirely by exhaustion and the crowding of sensation at the base of his skull. Every eye is fixed upon him. Despite ten years perfecting his invisibility, not to mention a lifetime before that, Grantaire is suddenly the most visible thing in the room, a bright orange target, a flashing neon sign, with reflector strips for skin and a spotlight flooding the stage. It’s unbearable.

Bahorel’s hands around his elbows are, at this point, the only things keeping him upright.

\------

“No strangling,” Feuilly says, catching Bahorel’s quick, concerned glance over his shoulder. “Here, sit. Enjolras, put the bag in his room?”

Enjolras nods, and passes silent as a ghost through the kitchen into the darkened corridor beyond. Bahorel guides Grantaire to a high-backed stool at the counter, touch light but firm; with a murmured “May I?”, Feuilly divests Grantaire of his heavy overcoat, brushing soothing fingers over the back of Grantaire’s neck as he does so.

Jehan, Joly, Courfeyrac and Bossuet had shot to their feet at the first sight of Grantaire’s plane- crushed curls over Enjolras’ shoulder, but Jehan had picked up on R’s unease almost immediately, turning with a fierce glare to keep his friends’ enthusiasm at bay. Only once Grantaire is no longer at risk of falling over does he relent - and in half a heartbeat Joly is kneeling in front of Grantaire, holding his face between long, freckled hands, expression clinical. Grantaire startles, but Joly’s thumbs against his cheekbones keep his head in place.

“What in Christ’s name -” says Grantaire, with difficulty.

“You look like a fish,” Bossuet informs him, as Joly tilts Grantaire’s head left, then right, none too gently.

Joly’s mouth turns downward, and he releases his hold. “My friends,” he says, voice grave, “it appears the virus was not a rumor. Zombies are real. Run for your lives.” He stands up, remarkably unworried about his dread pronouncement, and drops a kiss onto the crown of Grantaire’s head. “I prescribe sleep,” he whispers. “It’s good to have you back.”

The straining tension in the air snaps with a virtually audible _pop_.

Courfeyrac gives a horrified wail, but his smile is soft and pleased, and he exchanges a relieved glance with Combeferre. “Les démoniaques! Ils nous ont trouvé!”

Bahorel bares his teeth in a laugh, sharklike. “That was a terrible movie.”

“Yes! Terrible and fun!” Jehan says. “You enjoyed mocking it. Admit the truth and your heart shall be free.” He takes an unsteady breath, steps past Bossuet and sinks into a loose-limbed heap at Grantaire’s feet, pressing his ear against Grantaire’s knee. “Oh, R.”

Grantaire puts a hesitant hand on Jehan’s shoulder. Jehan covers it with his own, and closes his eyes. Neither make any mention of the tears that begin to track their slow way down his cheeks.

“Hey,” Bossuet says. “Welcome home.” Grantaire looks up, eyes over-bright, and offers him a small, wondering smile. Bossuet grins back happily. “You took your sweet time, R. Next time, not so long, okay?”

“Not so long,” Grantaire says. His fingers tighten on Jehan’s shoulder; Jehan simply draws up his feet and nestles in closer.

At the scrape of crockery on stone behind him, Grantaire’s head whips around. “You’re thinking too much. Eat,” says Combeferre, admonitory, from the other side of the counter, sliding a plateful of food towards Grantaire. The way Grantaire’s face shifts shifts from startled curiosity to avid hunger makes it clear he hadn’t realized how hungry he’d been until Combeferre had picked up on it.

Jehan files the speed with which Grantaire had gone from relaxed to tensely alert away for future consideration.

Feuilly tosses Grantaire a fork and settles down onto the nearest stool; Grantaire catches it easily and starts in. The leftovers begin to disappear at a rate that makes even Bahorel’s eyebrows inch upwards. The other stools are commandeered with equal rapidity, leaving Courfeyrac to fetch a chair from the dining table and bear its inferior height with dignity.

Combeferre remains on his feet, puttering around the kitchen. When Enjolras comes in as silently as he had disappeared, Combeferre is there to wrap a solid arm around his waist and keep him still; he knows just how much being unable to act in the face of uncertainty sets Enjolras on edge, and these past few weeks have been particularly difficult.

Enjolras leans into him gratefully. They listen as the conversation shifts from a light banter to a discussion of the new doctrine of Ethiopian socialism, announced only seven days before. Grantaire demolishes his plate in silence.

(His ability to talk so glibly about everything and nothing at all and still pick up on each word and glance and flicker of motion about him is an essential part of why he’s so good in the field - but here, he is silent as no-one present has seen him before.)

“One party, then,” Jehan says solemnly.

“Well, that’s the gist of it, isn’t it?” Bahorel rubs his knuckles absently along his jawline. “National unity, my father’s pruning hook.”

Courfeyrac swallows a snort.

“How’s the EPRP planning on answering? Bossuet - you met a couple of members when you went over in February. Any contact?” Feuilly looks searchingly at Bossuet, who nods.

“Zeru Kehishen called on the 23rd. MEISON’s thrown their weight behind the Derg - full support. _He_ thinks that the government has betrayed the spirit of the Revolution. Apparently, it looks a lot worse from the inside.”

“Worse? How can it look worse?” cries Jehan. “Haile Mariam’s been given all the trappings of the worst army-backed dictator.”

“And the famine’s left the people desperate for any promise of betterment. Kehishen says the students are buying it, too.”

“The students?” repeats Courfeyrac, voice flat.

“You have to admit the language is stirring. It’s cleverly written.”

“Equality before the law, sure, but not a single mention of any sort of say in the government. A junta sooner than a republic.”

“Everyone’s equal when they’re dead,” Jehan says grimly.

Bossuet sighs. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“No better than an emperor,” Bahorel grunts. “Another stolen revolution.”

“It’s not often a people manages to topple a god,” Joly says, with a hint of a smile. “Whatever - whoever - steps up next is almost stretched to fit by the vacuum.”

Courfeyrac says hotly, “If Selassie had allowed himself to shrink a little beforehand and given Ethiopia a peacefully elected leader, there might not have been such a vacuum to fill!” He looks ready to spring to his feet.

“Selassie did some great things in his time,” says Jehan. “The OAU is a groundbreaking institution; and not many people could have kept Ethiopia’s independence as long as he did.”

“Maybe so,” Feuilly says. “But he either didn’t realize the extent of the February famine, or he chose to ignore it. I imagine were true democracy in play such things would not go so unnoticed; the people’s voice unheard gathers a terrible momentum.”

“How fearful and sacred a voice!” Joly murmurs.

“Kehishen doesn’t trust Mister Mengistu Haile Mariam farther than he can throw him. If things go pear-shaped, the EPRP wants to know whether or not we’ll support them.”

“No choice about it,” Combeferre says, finally. “If MEISON’s out of the running, losing the only other potential party with support on the ground already would be a disaster.” He looks at Enjolras, who, after a brief moment’s consideration, nods decisively.

“Right.” Enjolras pushes away from the counter and catches Jehan’s eye. “Can you get in touch with a couple of publishers and printers in Addis Ababa? Bossuet, if you can ask the EPRP to write up a detailed breakdown of the doctrine, and one of Jehan’s printers agree to the risk, we can distribute information to the population, and avoid linking the EPRP to a potentially seditious situation.” He turns to Feuilly. “And your university contacts - can you get the details of any dissenting student groups? Look into whether we can get them funds or help them in any way.” All three exchange glances, and nod agreement.

“I don’t think there’s much else the A B C should do yet,” Combeferre says.

“Let the EPRP do some spelunking until the dust settles and the outside world can see again,” Joly suggests. “Maybe it won’t be so bad as all that. There’s a chance, at least.”

“In hell,” Courfeyrac says glumly, and flops back into the chair. Grantaire plays idly with the handle of his fork.

“Ok, everybody up,” says Bahorel, suddenly. “Four days ‘till 1975; let’s make the most of them. I know a place, and R will want some to get some sleep.”

The air brightens tangibly, and Courfeyrac shoots to his feet. “I’m in.” Murmurs of agreement are heard, and Grantaire yawns on cue. Joly goes for his coat.

Combeferre looks at Enjolras, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “You should come. I know you think you don’t want to -” The corners of Enjolras’ eyes crinkle, and Combeferre presses his wrist. “- but you’ll regret it in a week if you don’t. They’re not going to be here long.”

“Yes,” Enjolras admits.

“Good decision.”

“Where should I put this?” Grantaire is standing awkwardly beside them, holding his plate aloft as gingerly as if it were made of glass.

“Dishwasher’s to the right of the sink,” Combeferre says, and waits until Grantaire has divested himself of his cargo and straightened up to add, “- and your bedroom’s the first door on the left, just through that corridor there.”

Grantaire yawns again, covering his mouth with a languid hand. “Sorry.”

“Get to bed,” Combeferre says, amused, and pulls him into a tight hug. “Glad you could make it.”

And then everyone at the door is tripping over themselves to hug Grantaire, freshly swaddled in thick winter clothes or not.

As Feuilly pulls away, he says, face serious, “You know that whole zombie thing? I think your particular strain is probably closer to Code Name Trixie.” Grantaire gives a surprised bark of laughter, then begins to laugh in earnest, for the first time in what feels like years. Feuilly reaches out to tweak his nose, smiling, and turns to leave.

Enjolras is standing in front of him when Grantaire blinks the tears out of his eyes. A hat is crammed down over the shine of his gold curls, probably by Courfeyrac, and a few of the longer strands are caught in the hasty loops of a gray cabled scarf.

Something in Grantaire’s chest clenches in desperation.

Enjolras’ fingers twitch, an aborted little motion, and he looks uncommonly frustrated, as if he were grasping for words that wouldn’t come - impossible, of course. Enjolras always finds the words he wants: but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he shakes his head in a quick rattle, and sweeps Grantaire into a swift, intense embrace.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, eyes flicking over Grantaire’s face, still close enough that he has to bend his head downwards significantly to do so. “Thank you.”

And he’s out of the door, in a flurry of cold air.

Grantaire stands there, nonplussed, caught in the sway of an absent magnetic field.

Then another skull-cracking yawn sweeps through him, and the bed’s pull reasserts itself.

Clean white sheets in a clean pale house, and the clear evening light lies in slats across the thick white comforter. He doesn’t even take off his shirt.

\------

“He’s asleep?”

Combeferre’s voice is soft at Jehan’s shoulder.

Jehan cuts him a startled sideways glance, then bites his lip, unrepentant, and nods. After a moment, his eyes drift back to the shadowed room.

“I know the expected thing here is to say he looks peaceful, but -” Jehan draws in a long breath, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. “But he looks - I don’t know, it looks as if he’s on the edge of something. Like if I touched him he’d have a knife at my throat before I could say ‘boo’.” He reaches unthinkingly for Combeferre’s hand. “He used to sleep like the dead.”

Combeferre laughs without humor, a silent puff of air against the skin of Jehan’s neck. “Nothing dead about this one, any more.”

Jehan sighs, and leans his head against Combeferre’s. “I just wanted to see -”

He trails off, but Combeferre knows exactly what he means. _Real? Not real?_ He squeezes Jehan’s hand.

Jehan lets the door swing shut again, easing the handle into place without a click. He keeps his eyes on the metal when he speaks. “You know something I don’t, don’t you.” Combeferre opens his mouth, but Jehan spins around to put a finger on his lips. “You can’t tell me! I get it! Just.” He exhales. Drops his finger. “Is he going to come back?”

“I don’t know,” Combeferre tells him honestly.

\------

Despite the desultory drizzle the next day, one that doesn’t even have the decency to freeze into sleet, Courfeyrac leads everyone except Joly and Bossuet on an afternoon stroll in Rock Creek Park. Although he manages to access the Park easily from Combeferre’s house (a mere ten- minute walk), once inside, it becomes far more difficult to find the way out - factoring in, of course, Courfeyrac’s slightly excitable direction-taking.

They take refuge at last in a stumbled-upon planetarium, just as the dampness thickens into a full-blown downpour.

“It looks different in the rain,” Courfeyrac is saying as they bundle into the lobby, laughing and bedraggled. The ticket-lady is staring at them, probably quite unimpressed with the seven sets of sopping footprints being tracked all over the gleaming tile. Courfeyrac notices her displeasure immediately, and bounds over. “Sorry - we got lost.” He smiles ruefully, folding his raincoat over one arm. “How much are tickets for the presentation?”

“Four dollars each,” she says, mollified. A hint of a smirk twitches the corners of her mouth. “But for you drowned rats, five. Janitors don’t work for free, y’know.”

Then she spots Combeferre in the crowd, and the smirk dissolves into an honest smile. “Well, hello, ‘Ferre! You shoulda said something. Are these your friends at long last?”

“Good afternoon, Rosalie,” Combeferre says warmly, pulling off his gloves finger by finger. “And yes, they are. Three of them actually live in DC, you know.” He ignores Courfeyrac’s accusingly dropped jaw.

“Too busy to see the stars, huh? This city’s full of the scurry-buzz, all right,” Rosalie says, laughing. “No peace for the wicked. You Congressman Enjolras?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Enjolras says politely, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

“You’re even prettier up close,” she says admiringly. “Not my type, but hey. You’re sure doing a good job up on the Hill.”

Enjolras looks bemused. “Thank you.”

“Combe _ferre!_ ” Courfeyrac cries, giving up on the fly-catching approach. “You know this place? Why didn’t you _say_ so?”

“But you were having such fun being lost,” Combeferre replies, eyes twinkling. “How could I possibly ruin it for you?”

Courfeyrac puts his head on one side, birdlike. “Yes,” he concedes. “I’ll admit it was delightful to take up the mantle of Edmund Hillary and his ilk.”

“I hate to break it to you, Courfeyrac,” Bahorel rumbles, “but Rock Creek Park isn’t _anything_ like Mount Everest.”

“It’s cold and wet and windy!” Courfeyrac insists. “The analogy stands.” He waves aside further dissent with a dismissive hand, and trains his inquisitive gaze once more upon Combeferre. “A planetarium? Do you come often?”

“Oh, yes,” Rosalie says happily. “Once a week, at least, ‘m I right?” She beams at Combeferre. “And he’s a real gentleman about it. No crumbs or anything.”

“It’s a good place to think, and an excellent show,” Combeferre says earnestly. “It doesn’t hurt that the narrator has a lovely voice.” He meets her eyes and smiles.

“Why, _thank_ you,” she says, dipping down a half inch. “You gonna introduce me to them properly, then?” She’s looking directly at Bahorel, who is down to a wet long-sleeved white t- shirt that does absolutely nothing to obscure his physique.

“Of course,” Combeferre says, with a small smile. He turns to face the others. “This is Rosalie Peace - she’s a grad student at Johns Hopkins. Doing a PhD in quantum scattering theory, if I’m not mistaken?” He glances at her.

“Spot on,” she hums.

“And the evening show at the planetarium twice a week,” he finishes.

“Courfeyrac,” Courfeyrac volunteers, wiggling his fingers at her. “Of Pontmercy and Courfeyrac, the law firm.”

Bahorel returns Rosalie’s frank gaze dead on, eyes not dropping from her face. “Bahorel. A bit of everything, including law.”

“Jean Prouvaire,” says Jehan. “Call me Jehan, if you would. I write.”

“He’s a poet,” Bahorel puts in. “And a damned good one at that.” He claps Jehan on the shoulder, and Jehan flushes pink, pleased.

Enjolras nods to her. “Enjolras, as you know.”

“We’re a bit rag-tag, if you can tell,” Feuilly says, coming up and holding out his hand. “Feuilly. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“And you, I’m sure,” she says, returning his grip.

“I’d love to hear more about the work you’re doing sometime,” he says, stepping back.

“And I’d love to tell you!” She sounds surprised. “Not many people are interested.”

“Oh, but I am,” Feuilly hastens to assure her. “Purely in an amateur vein, of course -”

“Just like Combeferre, then,” she chuckles. “Don’t worry.”

She looks expectantly at Grantaire.

“I’m Grantaire,” says Grantaire, surprising himself. Enjolras shoots him an inscrutable glance.

“Well, I’m real glad to meet you all,” she says, and Grantaire can tell she means it. “Why don’t you come on in? Show shoulda started, oh -” she checks her watch, “five minutes ago, but hey. Give me your five dollars, and I’ll sort it out.”

And so it is that they find themselves sitting in the plush seats of a darkened planetarium, tipped backwards and staring at the ceiling, where constellations shift and flicker, with Rosalie’s rich voice telling them the story of the universe.

Somehow Grantaire ends up sitting next to Enjolras. About five minutes in, he feels tentative fingers brush across the top of his hand, and he looks over, startled. Enjolras is looking at him, a question in his eyes - so Grantaire turns his palm over and tilts his head. _What?_

To his surprise, Enjolras laces his fingers with Grantaire’s and returns to looking up at the projected stars. _What._

Grantaire’s pulse kicks up to a panicked drumbeat; Enjolras must be able to feel it thrumming in his fingers. All of his senses narrow to the thumb absently rubbing circles along his index finger.

Neither move until the lights come up.

(When they get home, Bahorel is wearing a wide grin and Rosalie’s number in permanent marker along the inside of his wrist.)

\------

Grantaire has just scraped the last mushroom into the pan when the phone rings the next morning.

He gives the rapidly-setting Catalonian omelette one last prod, then snatches the ‘phone off its hook before it can ring again.

“Hello, you’ve reached Combeferre’s house, can I take a message,” he says, twisting to look over his shoulder at the body-strewn living room. There are a couple of airbeds in the other guest room, but only Combeferre and Enjolras had managed to make it off of the couches and carpet last night. Luckily, no-one seems to be stirring; he plans on waking them up with the food already on the table.

“Grantaire?” says Musichetta.

Grantaire’s attention snaps back to the ‘phone. “‘Chetta!” He shifts it into a better position against his ear and turns back to check on the omelette. “Are you okay?”

“Thank _god_ you picked up the ‘phone. No, I’m not okay.”

He freezes. “‘Chetta. What happened.”

“I’ve gone on holiday by mistake!” Her voice is a desperate growl in his ear.

“Jesus christ,” he says, relieved. “Don’t scare me like that. I’ll have a heart attack and then you’ll have to attend my funeral, and I know how much you hate wearing black.”

“Gran _taire_ ,” Musichetta whines. “ _Please_. I’m seeking asylum here. Renting a cottage in Wales in the wintertime has to be a violation of the Geneva Convention.”

“Do you want me to talk to Combeferre?”

Musichetta says _“Yes”_ at the same time Combeferre says, “Talk to me about what?”

“Speak of the devil,” Grantaire tells Musichetta, then turns to Combeferre and covers the mouthpiece. “Were you awake already?”

“No, but that’s all right.” Combeferre takes a deep breath in through his nose, and sighs in contentment.

Grantaire can’t help smiling. “Do you have room for one more person?”

“If you keep cooking like this, absolutely,” Combeferre says, eyeing the giant panful of eggs and meat and vegetables. “And to be honest, yes. We can always reshuffle sleeping arrangements.”

“Brilliant,” Grantaire says, and takes his hand away from the ‘phone. “All systems go. Ditch the holiday and get on a plane. What’s that _noise?_ ”

“It’s the wind,” Musichetta says grimly. “I walked three miles through freezing mud to get to this phonebox, and it’s in fucking awful repair. The door won’t close, and the wind is blowing right up my _everything._ Oh, and now there’s an angry farmer outside waving a potato at me.” She laughs breathlessly. “I’d better go.”

“God, what a nightmare,” Grantaire says. “I’m in awe. See you tomorrow?” “If I’m alive,” she replies, and hangs up.

“Who was that?” asks Combeferre, watching Grantaire replace the ‘phone and begin the delicate process of inverting the omelette onto a large plate.

“That was Musichetta.” Tongue between his teeth, Grantaire returns the omelette to the pan. It sizzles faintly.

“Your colleague.”

“And a very dear friend. She’s saved my life more than once, I’ve saved hers.”

“We’ll be glad to have her,” Combeferre says quietly.

\------

Musichetta calls again during lunch, a spectacular affair that is Bahorel’s answer to Grantaire’s morning surprise. (He hadn’t taken kindly to being woken up at a human hour, and the food had piqued his competitive streak.)

“You’re in London _already_?” Grantaire says, incredulous. “What did you _do_?”

“Don’t believe anything you read in the papers. Lies and calumny, the lot of it,” she answers.

“You’re scary,” he says.

“Thank you.” He can hear the smile in her voice. “So it looks like I’ll fly into DC tomorrow morning at nine your time.”

“Christ, ‘Chetta, I was kidding about the tomorrow thing!” he cries.

“I wasn’t,” she says fervently. “You’ll be there to pick me up?”

“Of course,” he says, resigned. “With your luck it’ll be raining, you know.”

“I don’t care,” she declares. “See you then.”

Grantaire hangs up, shaking his head.

“So tell us more about this Musichetta,” says Jehan, looking up from his food. He’s sitting with Enjolras in the library, discussing the bones of another pro-bill speech. They’re a good team; even in the days Grantaire’s been here, they’ve come up with the rough drafts of three separate speeches.

After a moment’s hesitation, Grantaire decides to tell a little piece of the truth.

“Well, she basically intimidated her employers into giving her the job. She’s nothing like their usual candidate - mostly they go for aristos from the big Oxbridge colleges.” He jumps down the steps to the living room to grab a spring roll from the coffee table. “They wouldn’t even interview her. So she got a bit of makeup, mugged a couple interviewees before they went in, nicked their clothes and their accents, and did their interviews for them.”

Bahorel whistles approvingly.

“Needless to say -” Grantaire bites into the roll. “She got the job.”

“When will she arrive?” Feuilly asks, neatly overriding any further lines of questioning.

“Nine tomorrow. I’ll pick her up.” If it’s just Grantaire at the airport, there’ll be no cause for suspicion.

“Don’t get into any car-chases, and you can borrow mine,” says Combeferre. Courfeyrac splutters into his drink, and Feuilly nearly chokes on a piece of sweet-and-sour chicken.

“Hilarious,” Grantaire says dryly.

\------

The rain is drumming soothing patterns on the roof, tracking shapes and worm-trails and shifting shadows across the skylight. Joly breathes against the reassuring weight of Bossuet’s arm, blinks slowly, a soft blue stutter, on-off-on.

He loves Combeferre’s house.

Somebody’s clattering dishes in the kitchen. Pancakes? Waffles? There’s a faint warm sweetness to the air that could be maple syrup.

To move, or not to move - the eternal question. Joly considers. Across the thick white carpet, tucked against the furthest arm of the couch and half-drowned under heaping drifts of comforter, Jehan snuffles. It’s New Year’s Eve, which is a perfect reason to lie here half-asleep for as long as possible; but there’s an itch fizzing upwards from the tips of his toes and - and -

Somebody rings the doorbell.

Before either Combeferre or Courfeyrac can do more than turn around - Combeferre bent over the stove, Courfeyrac arranging pancakes on plates - Joly is dashing towards the door, yelping, “I’ll get it, I’ll get it -”

Bossuet shifts slightly on the couch, curling away from the sudden cold, and Courfeyrac snorts at the forlorn mewl that follows Joly out of the living room.

Joly pulls the door open.

\------

Musichetta’s watching Grantaire struggle to open the boot of Combeferre’s car while she huddles wetly under the slight overhang of the roof, attempting to wring the water out of her hair. The handle, cold and slippery with rain, is resisting his best efforts; she’s laughing at his all-too- familiar predicament, and so she misses the door swinging open behind her.

The undignified squeak that follows, however, does catch her attention. She turns, still trying to tame the worst of her wildly springing curls.

_Oh_ , she thinks, with a jolt of pleasant surprise.

“Hello,” the man in the doorway breathes, eyes wide. “You must be Musichetta?” He looks rumpled, sleep-dazed and startled, auburn hair sticking up in all directions.

“Probably,” she agrees. “After a long flight, I never know, myself.”

He grins, and his eyes light with happiness. “You have a lovely accent.”

“South London? Really?” She can feel her eyebrows climbing.

“Oh, yes!” he assures her earnestly, and then looks stricken. “I haven’t invited you in - and it’s cold, and raining, and -” he jumps backwards, a brief windmill of arms, giving her space to step inside. “- and you’ve flown all the way from London, and here I am, keeping you outside, it’s only - well, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen -”

He trips over his tongue, catches himself, and flushes up to the tips of his ears; but his smile only grows wider, as if even embarrassment is unable to baffle his brightening joy.

She can’t help smiling back. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

He starts. “Oh! I don’t - sorry, how rude - Joly. It’s Joly. I’m, um - here, let me take your coat?”

She laughs, and wriggles her arms out of thick sleeves, pulls it free and hands it over. “Careful - it’s a bit damp.”

He flashes her an anxious glance as he moves to hang it over one of the plain silver hooks beside the door, but whatever he might have said is drowned in an almighty clatter from beyond the dividing wall.

“Bossuet,” sighs Joly, muffled by cloth. He steps away from the coat rack, turns to where Musichetta is still dripping onto the pale wood floor. His smile is warm as the radiator alongside her bed in London, a slow reassurance through layers of blankets, cutting the winter’s chill. “R’s getting your bags, then?”

She nods, and he looks relieved. “Well, come on in properly, and dry off before you catch cold. And, um - meet Bossuet, who I think just fell off the couch.” His ears are still pink.

“I’m fine,” calls a sleepy voice. Musichetta watches Joly’s eyes crinkle with fondness.

_I like you,_ she thinks. _Oh, yes._

Combeferre turns back to the pancakes with a slight smile; he says, quietly, to Courfeyrac, “Observe. Phototropism in action.”

\------

Later that day, the sun emerges at last. It’s still too cold to be comfortable out-of-doors, so Musichetta contents herself with sitting cross-legged in the warm square of light cast on the carpet in front of the French windows. She tips her head back to bare her neck to the sun, shakes her hair out behind her shoulders and closes her eyes in bliss.

Grantaire smiles at her expression. “Be quiet, you,” she says peaceably.

“I didn’t say anything,” he chuckles, but gets to his feet easily; and, giving Musichetta’s half-dry mass of ringlets a parting pat, he leaves her to her sun.

His steps slow when he looks over at Enjolras, who is still hard at work in the library, reference books piled beside him and papers fanning out over the table’s surface. As Grantaire watches, Enjolras reaches to his right as if to lift a glass of water; his fingers encounter nothing but air. A slight frown appears between Enjolras’ eyebrows, but he doesn’t look up. Grantaire laughs to himself, and goes to fetch a glass of water.

Enjolras lifts his head at last when Grantaire slides a coaster onto a bare patch of table, puts the glass on top of it, and drops into a seat. “What - oh. Thank you.” His voice is scratchy. Taking the water, he gives Grantaire a small, grateful smile, and drinks. Grantaire watches his throat move with the same sort of sick fascination a fox might feel at the sight of a particularly deadly hound.

“Where are the others?” Enjolras asks, brushing the last drop of water from the side of his mouth.

“They went out to buy fireworks,” says Grantaire. _Get ahold of yourself_. He summons up a lopsided grin and holds it on his face through sheer force of will. “Did you miss that discussion entirely? Musichetta was horrified we hadn’t got any already, it being New Year’s Eve, and she sent them all packing. Given the heat of her fervor, I expect they’ll return with enough fireworks to blow up the entire house.”

“If Jehan has anything to do with it, they probably will,” Enjolras says. “Fire fascinates him.”

“It would,” Grantaire sighs. “Anyway, they should be back any minute, and Combeferre’ll be here to make sure you don’t go thirsty again.”

He starts to rise, but Enjolras puts a hand out to rest light fingertips on his arm. “Stay, please?” It’s the only time Grantaire has ever heard Enjolras sound unsure.

He sits back down, slowly; Enjolras lets out a breath and closes his eyes, rubbing his temples. When he speaks, he sounds... small. “The ability to bring this bill into being was the reason I ran for Representative. The Senate can’t originate bills that require taxpayer money, so we - Combeferre, Courfeyrac and I - thought that two years in the House was a wise investment, and that the time would be spent almost entirely upon writing the bill and convincing Congress that it deserved to be considered. It looks as though our estimates were correct. The plan was to spend this next year wearing down its opponents as well as running for a seat in the Senate; the six-year term will give us far more space to breathe, and return to the A B C more of our attention.”

Grantaire smothers the urge to laugh. Of course Enjolras is going to run for Senator.

“Congress reconvenes on the fourteenth of next month, R; I’m going to have to use every waking minute to get the seat and the bill this country needs. But I feel -” Wretchedly. “I feel like you’ve done something irretrievable since I saw you at the Capitol, it’s in your eyes when you look at the others, like this might be the last time you see them, and I _can’t_ , Grantaire, I _can’t waste_ these months if they’re the only ones I’m going to get.” He looks at Grantaire, asking for his understanding.

Grantaire’s heart has turned to lead; there’s a terrible sickening swoop in his stomach, creeping into his limbs like ice. “Okay.” He stands up on suddenly unreliable legs. “Okay, um. I’ll get out of your hair, then?” And he makes his escape, disappearing down the bedroom corridor, into his room.

Enjolras watches him go, derailed and startled into voicelessness.

\------

“Peas for pennies, greens for dollars, cornbread for gold,” Courfeyrac recites, lifting the tureen of black-eyed peas, rice and bacon above his head like a trophy as he carries it from the kitchen to the table. “And champagne for happiness,” he adds, setting it down. “That should definitely be part of the saying. Let’s start a petition!”

“Can we eat first?” asks Joly plaintively. “I’m starving, it’s ten o’clock, please can we eat.” Courfeyrac spreads his hands magnanimously and sits down. “Be my guest.”

The bowls full of food - collard greens, freshly baked cornbread and polenta as well as the black-eyed peas - are passed around the table (Bossuet serves both Joly and Musichetta, even though he has to stand up to do so - there’s a collective hush, but nothing is spilled), drinks are poured, the first toast is given, and everyone sets in upon their meals.

At her first bite, Musichetta lets out a noise of surprise, and levels her knife at Feuilly. Swallows. “Feuilly, is it?” Feuilly, who had cooked the dinner, nods warily. Musichetta laughs and takes another forkful of beans. “Don’t look like that, this tastes fantastic. I just wanted to ask where the hell you got this recipe. I mean,” she waves the fork expressively, “it looks less than appetizing, right? But it’s delicious. How did you do it?” She licks the fork clean and lifts an eyebrow.

Feuilly looks relieved. “It was my first foster mother’s favorite recipe. A tradition Southern meal at New Year’s, actually.”

Everyone except Bossuet nods fondly.

“Ah, the American South. No wonder it looked odd,” Musichetta says. She returns to her attack on the food, muttering “beans.” under her breath and shaking her head.

Grantaire is pale and strangely quiet once more, picking halfheartedly at his mound of polenta; over the past few days, he’d regained his verbosity, and the dynamic of yesteryear had, in some ways, returned, with Grantaire expounding lyrically upon shifting subjects for minutes at a time, whether or not attention was being paid, and the others holding several simultaneous conversations in merry ruckus. Grantaire’s tangents made more immediate sense, and he tended less towards the wandering diatribe; but ease had returned just as surely as a bird to its familiar nest after a summer on the wing. If the occurrence of physical contact has increased - there’s always a hand toying with Grantaire’s hair or a shoulder pressed up against him or somebody sitting on his feet - well. It’s only to be expected.

Tonight, however, his words sound forced, the light gone out of his smile. It’s not a bad facsimile of normality; Musichetta would know better in an instant, but Joly is regaling her with the story of Bossuet and the Great Pyramid of Fireworks, amid gales of laughter and the occasional breathless, hiccuping addition from Bossuet.

Enjolras is focused upon his plate, brow furrowed, slicing his collards into increasingly thinner strips. Combeferre’s gaze flicks to Enjolras repeatedly during the course of the meal, but he leaves him in peace. Some things, and Combeferre imagines he has a pretty good idea which things, have to be examined in the silence of one’s own mind.

The table is bare of food by eleven o’clock, and Bahorel chuckles at Feuilly’s dissatisfied face. “Go on, say it,” he teases.

“Well, how do I know whether you stopped eating because you weren’t hungry, or because I didn’t make enough?” Feuilly grumbles.

“Hungry or not -” Courfeyrac looks interrogatively at the faces around him, “- and I think decidedly not, Feuilly - there’s be plenty of drink to fill any gaps, including sparkling apple juice for the underage.”

Grantaire cracks a smile at the gentle jibe; Courfeyrac grins at him and lifts his glass. “To friendship,” he says firmly.

“To friendship!” Jehan echoes energetically, and the table choruses agreement.

Courfeyrac leans over to clink his glass against Enjolras’, trying to catch his eye; when Enjolras capitulates with a bitten-off sigh and meets his gaze, Courfeyrac winks at him and mouths, “Chin up.”

The stern lines of Enjolras’ face soften slightly.

“That’s more like it,” Courfeyrac murmurs, eyes crinkling, then downs the glass and hops to his feet. “And now, the aerial display!” he announces.

“Let’s set up a whole array for the first bombardment,” Jehan suggests brightly. “Make a proper show for the neighbors.”

They abandon the table for the living room, chattering excitedly. Musichetta, who has extensive experience with explosives, is the centre of attention, and she assumes the role with relish. Under her direction, the boxes are unpacked and their contents assembled at a blazing speed, as Courfeyrac eyes the clock and keeps up a running countdown.

With ten minutes to midnight, the bracing night-time air is braved.

“Jesus, it’s cold,” Bahorel mutters, carrying the biggest firework to its position.

Joly bounces past him with a rocket in his hands; he’s almost spherical with coats and scarves, and a pom-pom hat completes the picture. “It’s called preparation, Bahorel,” Joly admonishes him, putting the rocket down. “One only has to bear the slings and arrows of outrageous weather if one fails to wrap one’s arms warmly enough.” Standing on his toes, he unwinds one of his scarves to drape around Bahorel’s neck.

Bahorel chuckles and seizes Joly up in a bear hug. Joly kicks his feet ineffectually, laughing, “Let me go, you _monster_ -”

“Two minutes,” Courfeyrac calls. “Places, everyone! Lighters at the ready!”

“And remember to stand far, far back once the fuse is lit,” Musichetta says. “I’ve seen finer men than you lot lose their eyebrows - let’s not lose our heads.”

“Aye aye, cap’n,” says Bossuet, with a disarming grin. Her answering glare has no heat in it.

There are six firecrackers lined up on the ice-coated grass when the last of the cardboard is cleared away; a sort of religious hush descends over the moonlit garden, and the only sound is the musical crackle of ice underfoot. Feuilly, Combeferre, Jehan, Bahorel, Joly and Bossuet kneel behind their chosen firecracker.

Courfeyrac finds himself whispering. “Ten - nine - eight -”

His breath ghosts white in the air; the stars waver with the weight of ten thousand thousand past and passing years.

“- four - three - two - one - _fire_.”

Click; flare; a silent scramble to safety as the sputtering fuses race downwards; and then the night explodes with color and sound. The three rockets hiss away between two brilliant fountaining jets - cobalt emerald crimson diamond gold, pouring up and up and up and down to scatter like coins along the ice - and burst into showering electric streamers in the frosted sky.

They are struck dumb with awe, painted rainbow from toe to tip. Jehan’s mouth opens slightly, as if he’s trying to taste the color striped across his tongue.

Grantaire inhales deeply. The air has been abruptly laced with a sharp gunpowder sting, a sulfurous scent that he’s loved ever since the first Guy Fawkes bonfire Musichetta had taken him to. He blinks remembered smoke out of his eyes, the back of his throat burning, and the the garden returns to shadow.

“Oh, let’s do the rest,” Jehan says eagerly.

Courfeyrac twitches to life. “Fetch the Roman candles!” he cries gaily; but instead of following his own advice, he hangs back and makes his way over to Grantaire, amid a spontaneous rendition of Auld Lang Syne and the rush to select new fireworks.

“You’re a bit more obvious than you’d like to think,” he says, in Grantaire’s ear.

“How unfortunate,” Grantaire sighs, leaning back against rough brick. “All that useless effort.” He gives Courfeyrac a tired smile.

“Well,” Courfeyrac admits, “perhaps not entirely useless. I, for one, don’t know what’s got you out of sorts.” He watches Grantaire pull out a battered pack of cigarettes and fish in his pockets for a lighter. “And if _I_ don’t know that, then you’ve probably got everybody else convinced there’s nothing wrong at all.”

The lighter’s shivering flame betrays the tremor in Grantaire’s hand that darkness might have more graciously hidden.

“Nothing’s wrong, Courfeyrac,” Grantaire says. He gets the cigarette alight, and takes a long, steadying drag.

“Don’t lie to me.” Courfeyrac’s voice is soft. “I’ve earned your honesty, if nothing else.” It’s a bit of a low blow, but really, it’s the only thing he can say that might elicit a truthful response.

Grantaire flinches as if he’d been punched, and Courfeyrac feels a twinge of remorse. “Of course you have,” Grantaire mumbles, exhaling unsteadily. The smoke eddies in confused whorls before them. “I know that.”

Courfeyrac sneaks a hand into his and gives it a comforting squeeze. “Yeah.”

He waits, patiently. No-one has Courfeyrac’s persistence when it comes to his friends’ emotional wellbeing.

Grantaire relaxes against him with a bit more relief than the situation warrants, which rather puzzles Courfeyrac. He hadn’t intended to shake him that badly; and, after a moment of reflection, he realizes that he couldn’t have - Grantaire’s reaction must be tied to the original issue.

A terrible idea strikes him.

“You _can’t_ be thinking we don’t want you here?” he demands in a whisper, outraged.

A flash of guilt passes across Grantaire’s face, which is all the confirmation Courfeyrac needs. He swallows an exclamation he would probably have come to regret. “Why, you little -”

“Not - not all of you,” Grantaire interrupts, with a trace of anxiety. “Just -”

“Enjolras,” Courfeyrac surmises.

Grantaire slumps back against the wall, defeated. “Told you,” he mutters. “Useless.”

Courfeyrac laughs, a bright peal of laughter. “R, you’re blind as a bat!” He plucks the cigarette from between Grantaire’s fingers and grinds it out with a heel, ignoring Grantaire’s whine of betrayal. Then he seizes Grantaire by the shoulders and looks him firmly in the eye. “I don’t have the time to tell you just how wrong you are.”

Courfeyrac holds up a finger to forestall Grantaire’s protestation. “No. I don’t care what you think you know.” He pulls Grantaire away from the wall, and, with a final scolding (“ _Carpe horas,_ you damned fool -”) sends him stumbling towards Enjolras.

\------

Enjolras is watching Feuilly carefully pin a Catherine wheel to the winter-bare fence when he senses Grantaire at his side.

“Courfeyrac has given me to understand there may have been some misjudgment on my part,” Grantaire says. He adds, lightly, “As I remember, he is very rarely wrong in such cases.”

“He is not wrong now, either,” Enjolras says. He cannot help sounding hurt, a little, and his neck feels too stiff to turn. The Catherine wheel fizzes to life and begins its manic twirl. Someone whoops.

“Oh,” says Grantaire, in a small voice, and Enjolras has to look at him, even if it seems his bones must snap with the twist.

Grantaire nearly bites through his tongue at the force of Enjolras’ wounded glare.

“How could you even _dare to think_ ,” Enjolras says, passionately, “that I could value your life so little as to rank it below a fucking election campaign? For God’s _sake_ , Grantaire!”

Grantaire just looks confused. Enjolras moves closer. “I hope you do not think me heartless,” he says lowly, voice dropping to just above a whisper. There is a truth that Enjolras can never articulate as well as he feels he ought - a truth Grantaire has plainly missed - he is nothing, _nothing,_ without the people in this garden.

“I cannot waste this time,” Enjolras says, “because I would lose you with it.”

“But - the campaign -” Grantaire argues faintly, unable to tear his eyes from Enjolras’.

“It will simply have to put up with a little less attention.”

“The old you would never have said that,” Grantaire points out.

“The old me hadn’t lost a dear friend.” Enjolras finds himself brushing a stray curl out of Grantaire’s face. “You _are_ my friend, R, if you would only learn to open your ears.”

“And my eyes?” Grantaire says, a tiny smile curling at the corners of his mouth.

“You’ve never had a problem with your eyes,” Enjolras says, with some asperity. “I would have to be oblivious as well as cold to miss that.” His hand drifts down to cup Grantaire’s jaw, almost without conscious thought. “I am neither.”

“What are you, then?” Grantaire asks, voice hitching a little in his throat. He makes no move to escape Enjolras’ hand.

_Older than I ever imagined being._ “Someone who would very much like to take you out to dinner,” Enjolras says merely, and bends to press a butterfly-light kiss to the tip of Grantaire’s nose.

Grantaire shudders once, short and sharp, as if he might shred to pieces on the spot. (As if the atoms in his body have finally had enough of each other’s company and can’t get away fast enough, their choice - here, there - at last pulled into quivering immediacy.)

Enjolras finds himself with a mouthful of soft dark hair and a pair of arms koala-tight around his chest. “Really,” Grantaire mumbles into Enjolras’ collarbone. “Really really. Please don’t be kidding.”

“Have you known me to offer a thing in jest or cruelty?” Enjolras asks, softly, arms coming up to hold Grantaire safe as houses.

Grantaire makes a wet sound against Enjolras’ skin, and clings tighter.

\------

1975 dawns bright and clear as new-minted silver.

Bossuet, Musichetta and Joly take to walking so closely together that they create a serious tripping hazard, two dark heads and one light bent towards each other, in a perfect fairy-tale three - three sets of ankles poking out from under a quilt, three pairs of socks damp with early-morning dew from an ill-advised expedition, three spoons discovered in the sink after a midnight ice-cream raid (Musichetta had woken to unnaturally tense stillness beside her and Joly’s shallow panicked breaths; Bossuet, already awake, had fetched a tub of strawberry ice-cream from the freezer, and they’d fed it to Joly spoon by spoon until the nightmare was forgotten in sweetness.)

Bahorel is absolutely besotted with Rosalie; they had early agreed on the preeminence of her PhD in their relations. He brings her coffee and lunch, carries her bodily away from her desk when she falls asleep in the chair; she knows the local dives almost as well as he does, has a wicked sense of humor and very little mercy. Bahorel comes home delighted and bruised one night after what purported to be a simple “drink with some colleagues” turned out to involve the chemistry department, explosions and home-brewed alcohol.

He brings Rosalie to Combeferre’s house for lunch the day before Musichetta is due to return for London, and the two hit it off immediately.

“Bahorel mentioned you work for the government,” Rosalie says, over drinks on the porch. The menfolk were in the kitchen; she’d asked Bahorel to scram, sweet as pie, and after one last kiss he had.

“Yeah,” Musichetta snorts. “It’s a lark. I’m the only person in the building with even a drop of black blood, and one of the only women.”

“Good on you, girl,” Rosalie says. “It’s some tough shit. I’d know.”

Musichetta grimaces into her lemonade. “You can say that again. Mum’s from Ethiopia, she married an Irishman - I’m double-fucked, aren’t I?” She takes a long gulp and spits the ice back into the glass. “Anyway. I do what I can. I’ve paid for the parents to move out of Willesden, at least.”

“Yeah?” Rosalie says, reflectively. “Well, I’d better get a job at CERN or something after this, ‘cause this education business hasn’t done anything so far but take more’n it’s pound of flesh, and Ohio isn’t gettin’ any greener.”

“That’s where your family is?”

“That’s where my mother is.” Rosalie drains her glass and sets in on the porch planking. “But I haven’t seen her for some time.”

Musichetta hums in consideration. “How much longer ‘till you finish your thesis?”

“About a year, I guess, maybe more.”

“You’ve stuck around that long?” Musichetta says with a laugh. “You’ve got some serious balls.”

Rosalie’s eyes glint in appreciation. “Trick’s not to give too many shits. The thing is,” she waves a hand, “all I’ve heard from the very beginning was that I wasn’t good enough, couldn’t think straight, couldn’t keep up, blah blah blah. It’s the same no matter how long you’ve been around, only you get more of it. But, you know.” She shrugs. “I just don’t care that much. It kinda freaks ‘em out, actually - that girl’s way too cocky for her own good! You know, what all the boys were thinking when I started my doctorate. Got caught with their own cocks out, in the end - most of ‘em had to revise their whole thesis after their vivas, because Blondeau’s a shit PhD advisor.”

Musichetta whistles. “Ouch.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Rosalie settles back into the wicker chair with a sigh. “Life’s hard, but you gotta live it.”

“The only commandment,” Musichetta agrees. “Amen.” Rosalie closes her eyes.

She takes her leave with regret an hour later; there is only so long the thought of one’s PhD can remain dormant, and she has data to corral back at the physics department. A final blown kiss to Musichetta and a lascivious wink at Bahorel, and she drives away.

They seem to work well together, Bahorel and Rosalie; Musichetta can see that despite Rosalie’s much-vaunted indifference - perhaps because of it - she is shatteringly glad to have someone to whom she can entrust a piece of her heart without fearing its loss or mutilation.

(Rosalie cries in sheer relief the first time Bahorel brings her breakfast in bed the morning-after. He never mentions it to anyone, for although he is fond of a good boast, her tears could never be a bragging matter. Her laughter, however - that is a different thing altogether.

He is very very good at making her laugh.)

For his part, Enjolras takes Grantaire out to restaurants, half impossibly pretentious and full of aimless politicians (Grantaire spends the time hiding an amused smile) and half crowded, smoky hole-in-the-walls that Bahorel suggests (finally taking pity upon Enjolras, who doesn’t eat out when not plying fellow policymakers with food and is thus unaware of any actually decent places.)

At none of these dates does Grantaire allow himself to touch Enjolras, beyond trivial things such as the brush of fingers over a saltshaker. Enjolras cannot see why. He misses Grantaire’s weight against his chest, misses the smell of his hair, and this carefully maintained distance is beginning to wear on his patience. But according to the observations he has made during his friends’ many and varied relationships, acting in haste does not lead to good results.

He persists.

There are blue skies at last, and they match Grantaire’s eyes. It is a curious thing, Enjolras thinks, when simply looking up on a clear day can make his heart twist sharply in his chest. Curious - not entirely unwelcome, certainly disorienting; all the worse because Grantaire is hiding something.

He’s hiding something, and Enjolras has decided to let it be. It’s not worth disturbing their precious balance. This small space of time, while Grantaire still walks beside him, the grass greening beneath their feet - before Grantaire finds more secrets to tuck away between the corners of his sentences, before Enjolras throws himself at the legislative machine with all the power his golden tongue can summon - in this space, they can sit side by side sharing coffee and words and unspoken implausible hopes.

(Courfeyrac just wishes they would get on with it and _fucking kiss already_. Combeferre says that courtship shouldn’t be rushed - and Courfeyrac would agree with him, he really would, but it’s _kiss me, Hardy_ all over again and not a one of them can’t hear the clock ticking.)

But the fragile space doesn’t snap when Grantaire leaves for Pennsylvania. It suspends itself, and drags on.

\------

The report comes in at last from on high.

_Operation Blackbird is a go._

Grantaire has never felt the urge to get smashed so keenly. Musichetta calls him from Whitehall and he listens to her steady breathing until he can feel his fingertips again.

\------

In Moscow, the relief on Keto’s face when she spots him idly smoking by the riverbank makes him want to scream.

She doesn’t let her eyes do more than flick over him, and she doesn’t look in his direction again (it isn’t necessary.) He watches her surreptitiously as she passes. She’s wearing a pair of incongruously red shoes - ah. The drop point behind the abandoned warehouse on Beregovoy, then.

There is a thick twine-bound package beneath the lid of the second trashcan he checks. Later, in a room booked by petty international bureaucrat Rozell, Musichetta leafs carefully through the prize Grantaire has brought. It turns out to be full of scribbled formulas, statistics, diagrams - from what he can make out, Okhotnik has been running preliminary tests on animal subjects, and the proportion of infections to fatalities is disturbingly absolute.

Langley becomes very intense about the whole operation, after that. It’s a struggle to get them to leave Keto’s drop schedule as gradual as it needs to be to stay under the radar.

Enjolras shines as steadily as a flame, bright, brighter - brightest - even pixelated across a tiny grainy television in a cheap diner; even locked in discussion with Combeferre over the refinement of tactics the A B C had used to handicap the US Army during Wounded Knee; even before Grantaire had known him, he had shone, a bright boneless glow in the darkness, a child’s talisman to ward off sharp words and hands and edged glass. Somewhere there was hope and strength and belief - and, at last, there had been. Enjolras, in the flesh, bone and blood. Enjolras here. Enjolras human.

Grantaire gives up on the distance thing. Cut him in two and he’d repolarize, he is so hopelessly drawn towards Enjolras.

It’s still cold, but it isn’t raining as much, and by late February the sun has forgotten to be an icily remote ruse. The soil crackles and thaws. “And spring came to the valley,” Bahorel laughs, when Jehan drops by to fill Combeferre’s garage with rank upon rank of tiny pots of soil and seed.

Against all odds, Enjolras does have a record player tucked away in his apartment, which Grantaire discovers when he brings Enjolras an LP of a David Nadien concert and they have to spend over an hour digging through the boxes stacked in the spare room to unearth it. “Combeferre has a perfectly decent record player,” Enjolras had explained, when Grantaire had expressed amazement at his lack of any audio systems whatsoever.

He doesn’t, however, object to the record player’s new home atop the couch’s end-table. “Dance with me,” Grantaire says, bright-eyed, as the needle drops into place. Enjolras takes his arm.

Rinehardt. Blue shoes. A mailbox on Kulneva. The Sukhoi aeroplane design bureau is preparing to test the airworthiness of their Okhotnik-commissioned plane at the Khodynka aerodrome.

(“How did you get this?” Grantaire asks Keto, under the babble of conversation in a hastily chosen local café.

“I can sneak too,” she replies archly, and even Grantaire knows that his “You can’t take risks like that” means nothing.

The coffee is expensive, and tastes like metal.)

Nobody’s bugged any of the A B C’s Capitol places since December; apparently Grantaire’s harsh words with his Soviet handler had had the desired effect. As the temperature becomes more bearable, though, Combeferre starts conducting the more important clandestine conversations in his garden just in case. Grantaire spends afternoon after afternoon dozing in the grass as Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Enjolras discuss the workings of the A B C; requests for aid, reports on ongoing projects and situations, the delicate business of underground international coordination. Bahorel is often present; the others drop by whenever they can spare the journey, and are regularly in contact when they cannot.

Enjolras joins Grantaire on the grass once they have finished, sometimes. Grantaire curls into him, half asleep, presses his nose against the soft skin below Enjolras’ collarbone and lets the sun-sweet scent of him sink straight to his heart and spread all the way through to his fingernails, anchoring, the pause button on a VCR player set to fast-forward.

\------

Jehan opens the French windows that lead to Combeferre’s backyard with a flourish; the wet heat hits nose-first, like a hand smearing down his face, triumphant victor over the shy morning chill. _So dawn goes down to day._ In the heavy, flushed hours of the late afternoon, the plants seem almost gorged on light, stretched to their limits and glowing with it.

But if the afternoon’s sun-glut lingers longer than usual, and the hose isn’t applied quickly enough, there’ll be less of an exultation than a slow crisping wilt - and D.C. is hot. He’d relocated one of Combeferre’s more unfortunate moonflower seedlings that morning; freshly-disturbed roots are far less likely to survive, even bathed in water, and the little thing has only one to its name, despite Jehan’s best efforts.

He pads barefoot across the grass towards the fence, against which he had propped the sprout’s lone leaves; he drops into a crouch and reaches out to run a curious finger over his patient.

The leaves have fallen to lie like a last gasp on the soil. Ah, well, he thinks - but he stays crouched close to the earth, attention drawn to a tiny writhing movement not far from the seedling’s deathbed.

A worm - and after a few seconds, Jehan can see the blackened edge where his trowel must have sliced the creature in two. It’s perfectly framed in a butter-rich polygon of sunlight, an tangling creature caught in a slow honeyed singe, covered entirely by seething red fire-ants.

Its tiny agony is almost an electric thing; Jehan can feel it tingling in his fingertips. Sweat prickles at the back of his neck.

By the time he stands up, the urgency of the afternoon is fading, like the last of a frenetic adrenaline pulse. Evening tinges the wind against his face.

\------

It’s not as if Grantaire can let the Soviets think anything has shifted in their little status quo; for all they know, agent R is still well on his way to a glorious retirement on the right side of the Iron Curtain, and Langley seems set on maintaining that illusion. Grantaire continues to meet with KGB intelligence agents in dingy little cafés across Europe. The files he turns over are hand-fed to him by the Agency, but no-one’s copped the switch just yet.

Obviously, the information’s dud - so he doesn’t bother reading it over too closely.

Then, in Prague, a messenger from his Soviet handler arranges a personal meeting with him.

“This is a first, R. Congratulations on your new clearance,” he says, after perfunctory greetings and inquiries as to mutual health, clapping Grantaire’s shoulder in a rare display of pleasure.

“All according to plan,” Grantaire says, blithely.

“Even so! A foreign plant is virtually impossible to single out, as you know well. Think of all the trouble he might have caused if you hadn’t helped us break his cover!”

Grantaire’s heart flips. “Like I said,” he manages. “Everything is going as smoothly as we could have predicted.” Steady. A slight bit cocky. Not a tremor to betray him.

It’s a wonder he doesn’t flake to ash with _sheer burning rage_ before he gets back to America.

_“I am not your fucking executioner!_ ” he snarls, palms flat on his supervisor’s desk, joints white, voice cracking.

“The man was a liability,” his handler says, eyes flicking over Grantaire in cool assessment. “We could no longer trust his allegiance.”

“Send a letter to Brezhnev yourself, then! Have it scented and wrapped with a _fucking_ ribbon, for all I care. You want somebody dead, fine,” he hisses, and repeats, enunciating carefully, “I am not your executioner.”

An eyebrow lifts. “That is correct. What you are is nothing.The Blackbird is useful for now, and thus you are tolerated - but do not think for a _moment_ that we could not dispose of you as easily as we have used you.” He sniffs once, disdainfully. “That is all. You may leave.”

Grantaire slams the door with enough force to shiver paint from the walls. A childish gesture: if he could have burned the place to the ground, he would have, and spat salt on the corpses.

He is abruptly exhausted. It takes every shred of willpower he possesses to make his feet carry him down to his car; that he gets all the way to DC through driving rain without passing out at the wheel is a straight-up miracle.

\------

“Busy day?” says Grantaire, a low voice in a darkened room. Enjolras purses his lips and flicks on the light.

“I am making your couch wet,” Grantaire adds, unnecessarily.

“You are,” Enjolras says dryly. “Have you forgotten which cupboards the towels are in?”

Grantaire’s dark eyes track him hungrily across the room. “If I told you I fell asleep before I could make it to the bathroom, would you believe me?”

“Plausible,” Enjolras allows, returning with an overly soft white towel. Before he can toss it over, however, he gets his first proper look at Grantaire - huddled warily into the far corner of the couch, lines of tension clear in his limbs, an almost manic set to his expression.

“May I?” Enjolras says instead, holding out the towel. Grantaire looks startled, but nods. Enjolras settles the towel over his head in response and begins to rub briskly gentle circles across his skull. Grantaire goes pliant under Enjolras’ fingers.

“I’m not here for reassurances,” he says, quiet, oddly defensive even as his head lolls forward.

“No,” Enjolras answers carefully, shifting his hands downwards to smooth some of the mute helplessness out of Grantaire’s shoulders. Grantaire shivers at the touch.

Enjolras keeps his peace, and hopes that Grantaire will know his silence for an offer. The minutes tick by.

“The strange thing is -” Grantaire says eventually, pulling a dry blanket around himself as Enjolras curls up on the couch beside him, “the strange thing is, I don’t think I am nothing, anymore. Maybe to them, but not - not as a person.” His gaze is fixed on a point somewhere to the left of Enjolras’ head, but he’s talking now, and Enjolras isn’t going to stop him.

“When I left...back then, well, I’d be the first to tell you that it wasn’t as a person who stood for much at all. Like a math equation that canceled to zero, you know?” He shrugs uneasily. “It was exactly the sort of thing the Agency was looking for. There’s a nothing that means something, and there’s a nothing that’s just plain...nothing. You can use that sort of person. I was useful, in a way that couldn’t be self-sabotaged. I don’t think you can imagine how it feels to be useful after so long sucking pointless air into a dead-end gullet. But -”

He draws a shaky breath. “Fire a gun into somebody and you can't help becoming something. Bang bang, twice more to make sure they don't get up, the double silence of the flute and the water waiting to carry you into meaning - double may not be better, but it certainly means something. Anything that can't bear the sunlight knows that; case in point, impassioned Parisian partisans shooting from the shadows, in the shadow of their double cross. How curious, that war of the crosses - one broken, one doubled, ideograms locked in mortal combat. Ypres, with the double cross for its flag, doubled in name forever by the first World War; no-one except the Dutch still recognise it by its maiden name of Iepers, so shattered in two was its image. We chased our Tramp right out of the country for his doublecrossing double-crossed mockery - if only Herr Hynkel's doppelgänger had wanted to be an emperor! He might have been allowed to stay, then, and be free, here in the grand old shadow of Lady Liberty. Oh, to be _free_.”

His eyes on Enjolras’ face, longing sharp and plain.

“What a fucking double entendre. In our English phrase, it’s the hearing that’s duplicated, you know, although the original French lay in the intent rather than the reception; entente, understanding, agreement: but all we have is détente. The gap between a relaxation and an agreement is a wide-open chasm, and these two countries of mine aren't ever going to see their way across it because of an awful insistence that their own way be seen first and foremost. Their two gigantic ideas are tearing the world into pieces and they’ve got their matches struck to burn the evidence, and if they’re given a breath of a chance, they will, and all the rat children and shy children, beast children, loud children, school kids and kids that read and draw and laugh and sing, kids that carry bags or steal them, kids that learn state lore like the Bible, all of them that the Reds have same as America, all of them are going to have to bear the results, just as much as the weasel-gray men that make their choices day after day after day after day - oh, just - the terrible unceasing drag of it all -” and he laughs; there is something awful in the pull of his mouth, a wildness. He can’t seem to stop talking. So Enjolras kisses him, eyes open, and stills the restless twitch of his tongue.

Grantaire’s hand uncurls on his knee, waiting for - something - nothing - empty; his eyes are blank, an infinite distance of blue, close enough that Enjolras thinks he might feel the soft brush of eyelashes if he were to close them; but he doesn’t.

Time stretches, within slowly unimaginable seconds. Then Grantaire gasps a breath against his lips and kisses him back like it’s the end of the world.

“God - ” he whimpers, and, “oh, God, _Enjolras,_ ” pressing up against him as if he’s trying to climb inside Enjolras’ ribcage. One hand comes up to tangle in his hair, fingernails scraping bluntly across his scalp.

Sensation shocks across Enjolras’ skin, and he finds himself gasping after Grantaire’s mouth, crawling nearly on top of him, pushing him back against the cushions, chasing the taste of him, smoke and sharpness and the secrets behind his teeth.

Grantaire whimpers again, and arches against Enjolras. Enjolras drops his head to taste the frantic fluttering of Grantaire’s pulse at the hinge of his jaw, the way his throat bobs as he swallows, as Grantaire bares his neck and tries to catch his breath. Enjolras can feel Grantaire’s realisation and sudden horror under his tongue before Grantaire even opens his mouth.

“Enjolras, you can’t,” he whispers hoarsely. “What if - your career - you _can’t_.”

Enjolras lifts his head again and shifts until he’s almost entirely draped over Grantaire. With the tip of one finger, he strokes the laugh lines at the corner of Grantaire’s eye, then cups his face with both hands and leans down to kiss him, eyelids, nose, lips, as gently as he possibly can. He concentrates on spelling his answer against Grantaire’s mouth, nips a _can too_ into his bottom lip, applies himself to stealing all of the hollow protests from Grantaire’s lungs, and the air besides.

“You play dirty,” Grantaire murmurs, breathless again, but Enjolras can hear as well as feel his incredulous smile. He smirks into the kiss; Grantaire responds with bloody-minded intensity.

In snatches, between the strawberry-savouring of kisses: “They say it’s like falling, don’t they - Enjolras? But it’s not, it’s - up and up all the way. Fitting, to be eagle-stolen; I shall bear your cups and you shall be my golden king. Forgive me, forgive me: citizen; and don’t frown so! - there. Besides, what hound would howl for - this - except in joy? Or this - or - this - you see - ”

They fall asleep on the couch; wrinkling Enjolras’ suit, in the event, irretrievably.

\------

_(love may not care_

_if time totters,light droops,all measures bend_

_nor marvel if a thought should weigh a star_

_-dreads dying least;and less,that death should end)_

_\------_

There is a summerful of small things.

Freckles dusted sooty along collarbones and across soft skin at the bend of an arm, the way - if he allows himself - the way his nose fits warm under Grantaire’s ear up against the hinge of his jaw, the dip of skin over muscle between his anklebone and his heel, the curve of tendon at his knee, spine that arches and fingers so long and careful, tips roughened, knuckles and joints delicate - scars stretched like spider silk -

Different, strange and unsettling, sharp edges and loose catlike clarity, a staticky black scribble against the sheets - pieces drawn together by sinew and silver.

Terrifying to imagine the emptiness of an ending; so Enjolras doesn’t. Instead, walking home, he is reduced to imagining as fiercely as possible that Grantaire will be waiting for him up the stairs on the tenth floor in his apartment in his room in the bed, quite asleep, quite safe. Sometimes he is. Tonight he is.

He swallows the fear cold down his throat and settles besides Grantaire, slips an arm over gently rising ribs and curls his fingers into an outflung palm, pulls him close and tucks his nose snug against the back of Grantaire’s neck. He watches his breath stir pale hairs along the curve of a shadowed shoulderblade and imagines the whisper of impossible promises.

Grantaire feels eyelashes butterfly light at his spine; he shifts further into absolute alignment with the warmth at his back, coils his toes around cold ankles and falls back into soft grey sleep.

\------

Enjolras is alone when the phone wakes him late that September.

He slides feet out from under the pillowing duvet with regret, flicks on the little yellow lamp at his bedside. The telephone rattles blackly. He unhooks it, holds it to his ear and sweeps hair from his eyes. Hello yawned through a spine-cracking stretch.

The caller is silent, beneath the faint crackle.

Enjolras blinks exhaustion out of his eyes and coughs some of the thickness of sleep out of his throat. “Who is this?”

No answer, and a little voice in the back of his head begins its warning hiccup of tension. Then, unmistakeably -

A strangled cry on the end of the line. Even through the abrupt vertigo of unwilling consciousness, he knows, suddenly and without a shadow of a doubt, he _knows._ His throat closes over the sudden bloody twist of his heart.

The space at his back pulses with dislocation.

\------

“Stop me.” Enjolras is soaked and electric at Combeferre’s door. “Please.”

It is two o’clock in the dark rain of morning, but the time has never mattered, not really, and an answering thrill of tension instantly dissolves what little exhausted reticence Combeferre feels at the unexpected arrival of his closest friend.

“Here. In,” he says, and tugs Enjolras inside and down the steps to the nearest couch, hooking the door shut with a socked foot. His wrist is wet and freezing under Combeferre’s fingers, but he yields without resistance, settles stiffly onto the edge of the cushions.

_That’s new._

“I am going to take the gun in your closet and shoot somebody,” Enjolras says. His eyes spark flat and shivering, fixed on a point over Combeferre’s shoulder. “Preferably several people, those cretins at the Agency, maybe the Russian ambassador.”

There is a hard tremble along his arm, vibrating through Combeferre’s fingertips.

“Or perhaps I’ll fly a plane into the Kremlin. Do you think I could get past the border?” He turns his head to look at Combeferre, blank, glittering.

Combeferre doesn’t look away. He crouches and cups Enjolras’ unresponsive hand between his, blows warmth into blueing skin.

Enjolras’ shoulders hitch. “Combeferre, I could hear him screaming,” he whispers.

\------

It is cold in the attic she’s chosen.

“Eponine.” She can hear Grantaire’s voice in her head, low and smoke-roughened. “Nineh, do this for me, please, koteczek.”

“What,” she’d growled; sharp because she knew exactly what he was asking of her, surly because she didn’t want him _ever_ to ask. Not that.

He’d just looked at her, all sky-wide eyes and the serious twist to his mouth that sat so oddly on his face. _He should be laughing_ , she’d thought angrily.

Here’s the thing she won’t admit to herself: she hates the things that make him stop smiling.

“Fine,” she’d snapped eventually, after she’d sucked the last of their shared cigarette down to embers, filter warm from his mouth. “Fine, you bastard. I will.”

She twists the next tripod leg into place with more force than absolutely necessary.

Stupid. Stupid. How did he think they wouldn’t notice? A chemist in a top-level operation starts being found in places she shouldn’t, who are they going to look for first? If he were cleverer he’d have run as soon as his bird stopped showing.

Stupid.

\------

He’d taught her how to swear in English, the first time they’d met, handler and new agent, in Prague.

“Motherfucker,” she’d said, flipping her tongue against the syllables, chewing on the dirty salt-bright flavor of it.

“Roll them r’s,” he’d grinned, tipping backwards on his chair, foot hooked around the table leg.

He didn’t make her feel dangerous. They were both more dangerous than they cared to be, at times. (Well, this is mostly Grantaire; Eponine rarely grows tired of seeing the lovely, lethal echo of herself in other people’s terror.) No - the thing she’d known instantly, the first time he flashed her a sharp smile and an eyebrow-waggle over the icecubes in his drink, before she’d even sat down at the table - he made her feel safe.

“Again,” he’d demanded, thudding back down to all fours.

Together, they rarely found much energy to care about the briefcase underneath the table.

She’s not his handler anymore. Even then, she doubts there would have been another way.

The glass cutter stops whirring; she sets down the tube in her hand and pulls it away from the window. It leaves a perfectly circular hole.

The damp cloth is already in position below the muzzle, but she flicks water around the new-cut edges of the circle, just in case.

\------

One still night, in the firefly hours when Leningrad remembers St. Petersburg, they’d given each other their names with as much ceremony as a wedding.

She’d brought vodka because she likes to watch him squirm; he’d presented her with a furled white rose, and toasted her with lemon soda and a wry smile.

(He likes to love her with flowers; he brings her daisies and the round nodding heads of clover, marks dead drops with buttercup chains, leaves marigolds on her pillow when he’s on a job in her city, her Warsaw.)

He’d gone first, taking her palm and pressing a kiss to the crack in the heartline, giving it to her the same way he’d given her his first smile in Prague.

“Grantaire,” she’d said, rolling it around her mouth with the last of the vodka. Then again, realizing: “Grant _aire_ ,” and she’d bared her teeth, feral. “ _R._ You are such a shit.”

She’d leant forward and given him hers, up against his ear with her breath hot through his hair. He’d pushed his long fingers through the soft shorn down at the back of her skull, pressing their foreheads together.

“Eponine.”

\------

She sits back on her heels and looks at her hands, unfolded on her knees. Grantaire had once spent an entire dinner sketching the skyline of London onto her palm.

(“Take me there?” she’d said, almost throwaway - but he’d looked back at her with eyes a fathomless blue and answered, “Yes.”)

“No,” she whispers now, and clenches her hands into fists so hard that she can feel her nails cutting skin.

The dark bulk of the sniper rifle sits heavy in front of her, silhouetted against the window and Moscow’s gunmetal-gray dawn.

\------

She sights along the scope, adjusts a fraction of a millimeter; he’ll be in the courtyard soon, as the transfer schedule dictates. The truck is already idling.

Two months ago, in Tallinn, he’d been in love.

She’d been staying in some shitty little hotel off Viru Square, and he’d curled up on the faded bedspread and just _smiled_ , euphorically happy. What meant the most - he was loved in return. It had radiated off his skin like moon-warmth. He hadn’t needed to tell her anything more.

“It’s not a matter of trust, Nîne, he’s just not my secret to spill.”

“You trust people?” she’d laughed.

“Of course not. I trust you.” And he’d flicked her nose and they’d watched terrible Estonian talk shows until one in the morning.

On Sunday, in her soulless, monitored apartment at headquarters, he’d looked at her like a deer in headlights, tensely held shoulders and pulse jumping in his throat.

“Please, Nineh,” he’d said.

She’s always known what he’s asking her. _Maybe I can’t do this for you_ , she’d replied, for years; but now? Now she’s _promised._

He trusts her.

He’d trusted her even when they’d taken him, while she’d stood coldly desperate, when they’d smashed his head into the sharp metal of her doorframe until he was lolling in their hands and Eponine had just _stood there_. His blood had been red on the frame and on the floor, red dripping into his eyes and in a meandering trail behind him.

They couldn’t have known what he meant. They won’t expect her to be here.

\------

The door at the far end of the courtyard opens.

Her heart jumps once, sharp behind her ribs, and he looks up. Through the scope, his face lights with a desperate hope, even though he can’t possibly see anything but a high row of dark and dusty windows.

_(“Please.”)_

“I’m sorry,” she whispers; a deep breath, settling, _centering_ \- and she pulls the trigger.

The gun kicks against her shoulder, and the thin figure below jerks. The two guards spin with a curse, but they’ve missed their chance: the flash is past and the smoke caught at the cloth. Grantaire falls to his knees, small and wavering, half forgotten amid the radios screaming and the early warble of an alarm.

She stays until he is still on the reddening concrete.


End file.
